The Legend of Thunder Moon - Hardcover

Brand, Max

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803212690 ISBN 13: 9780803212695

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 1996

Synopsis

The Thunder Moon series represents some of Max Brand’s best work, originally published in 1927–28 as a series of interlocking stories. The University of Nebraska Press is now republishing these stories uncut and in the sequence Faust intended, with careful reference to the original typescripts. In order, the works appear in four volumes as The Legend of Thunder Moon, Red Wind and Thunder Moon, Thunder Moon and the Sky People, and Farewell, Thunder Moon.

The Legend of Thunder Moon is an intriguing and successful re-creation of the spirit of Cheyenne life during its golden age of nomadic hunting and superb horsemanship on the Great Plains. A Cheyenne brave, Big Hard Face, lacking a son to reaffirm his status, journeys east and kidnaps a white boy. The boy, raised as Thunder Moon, becomes immersed in Cheyenne culture and seeks honor through warfare and hunting to overcome the stigma of his lighter skin. Yet Thunder Moon refuses the self-torture of the Sun Dance, the major passage to adult status for males. Forced to prove himself through other means, Thunder Moon leads an audacious and successful raid against the fearsome Comanches.

In this inaugural volume of the Thunder Moon tetralogy, we find Brand at his best, uniting a gripping tale of action with a shift from seeing the Native American as an implacably hostile menace to a more nuanced and sympathetic figure.

About this title

About the Author

Edgar L. Chapman is an associate professor of English at Bradley University.

From Publishers Weekly

Originally published in 1927-28, this is the first of four novelettes in Brand's Thunder Moon series. Brand (1892-1944), a pseudonym of Frederick Faust, captures the spirit and pride of the Cheyenne Indians on the Great Plains in this story of a young white captive's growth to manhood as a Cheyenne warrior. Big Hard Face is an honorable, respected Cheyenne warrior. His three marriages have produced no son, however. Alone, he travels on a perilous journey to the white man's villages, where he kidnaps a white male infant, whom he names Thunder Moon. As the years pass, the boy brings both joy and sorrow to Big Hard Face. Thunder Moon has difficulty accepting some Cheyenne rituals, but he rides on dangerous raids against his tribe's enemies to prove himself worthy of his father's respect and to seek his own place as a Cheyenne warrior. Brand's mastery of the genre is still evident in this artfully crafted story.

Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0803212690
• ISBN 13: 9780803212695
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 160