Buffalo Gordon - Softcover

Lewis, J. P. Sinclair

3.73

11 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812570103 ISBN 13: 9780812570106

Publisher: Forge Books, 2002

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The first novel in an ambitious new series, a fictional history of the west as seen through the eyes of runaway slave Nate Gordon. He has returned to Louisiana as Sergeant Major Nate Gordon of the Tenth United States Cavalry. His job, to recruit and form the second US colored cavalry, the Ninth Negro. Three years have passed since Nate left Louisiana and his life as a slave, to join the Union Army. The war is now over, and it is clear that the South has paid a heavy toll. Nate's former home is a tattered collection of dilapidated buildings and ruined plantations.

Where once opulence and order ruled, poverty corruption and crime now thrive. Resentful and disgruntled white Southerners want nothing to do with Nate and his stripes. Racist Union officers and noncoms only make his task more difficult. Nate struggles to quell dissent from the ranks and to keep outside forces at bay as the Ninth Cavalry moves from the docks of Louisiana to the wide open West.

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About the Author:

J. P. Sinclair Lewis is the grandson of Nobel laureate Sinclair Lewis and writer Dorothy Thompson. He is a publisher of out-of-print books about American history with a special emphasis on the frontier. He resides with his wife and daughter in Washingtonl D.C.

From Publishers Weekly:

Western writers have long acknowledged the need for a first-class historical novel about the heroic exploits of the all-black Ninth Cavalry Regiment. Unfortunately, Lewis's unwieldy, overwritten attempt fails to do the job. Pockmarked by hackneyed types rather than characters, this account of the all-African-American frontier force that took on the Cheyenne and Comanche on the sparsely settled high plains opens with the formation of the regiment in Louisiana immediately following the Civil War. The story staggers and stumbles from the first page. Sgt. Maj. Nate Gordon, a manumitted slave who served in the Union Army, has been ordered to recruit other freed slaves for military service. Predictably, he runs into racial prejudice on almost every level and from almost everyone. Struggling to maintain military and personal dignity when confronted by corrupt white officers and surrounded by bitter and defeated Southerners, NateAthe perfect soldierAdeals with insubordination and incompetence as he whips the unit into shape, then leads it into battle on the wild frontier. What follows is a series of historically grounded adventures through a clumsy, obvious narrative. The novel is burdened by inconsistencies in plot and a use of dialect that provokes squirming discomfort. Drifting points of view, narrative intrusions and plot contrivances are additional problems. Although there is evidence of cogent historical research, the book desperately needs editorial attention on almost every page and is ultimately patronizing in tone and characterization. (Feb.)
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