Monday's Warriors - Hardcover

Shadbolt, Maurice

4.13

135 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0879239158 ISBN 13: 9780879239152

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 1994

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"Between one luckless general and the next there is a fleck of fable in history's eye called Kimball Bent."

What a fleck and what a fable! Frontier tales don't come much wilder or woolier than this rollicking, riveting story of Kimball Bent, born in Eastport, Maine, and dragooned into Her Majesty's army in the middle of the last century. Sent off to subdue the restless Maori in distant New Zealand, Bent finds himself at the wrong end of too many court-martials and deserts his regiment, becoming the unlikely hero and chief strategist of a Maori band that fights the British to a standstill in what proves to be the bloodiest and most terrifying of the colonial wars.

Most remarkable is that this story is true. Titokowaru and his fierce and feuding lieutenants did humble the English armies that had been sent to snatch their land, and they were led by this slightly befuddled Yankee, who was fighting (and mostly winning) the American Revolution all over the far side of the globe.

And Bent lives on in New Zealand, where parents still caution their children not to go out alone into the woods or "you'll be caught by Kimball Bent."

In Shadbolt's hands, this fierce and memorable narrative has the stuff of greatness. His themes are large and timeless, and he again proves himself to be one of the world's greatest storytellers. He provides here a tale rich in humanity, a narrative both true and absurd, marked by epigrammatic repartee and comic misadventures. For sheer storytelling, wild adventure, and astringent power, there are few books that equal Monday's Warriors.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

An American deserts Queen Victoria's army to cast his lot with Maoris fighting to keep their rightful share of New Zealand--in another historical novel by the author of Season of the Jew (1987), etc. Wary readers will encounter none of the bogus reverence that is the curse of most American aboriginal epics in this dry, mildly overlong story of the Maoris' hopeless fight to hold off total European settlement and dominance of their island. The only American touch is the point of view of Kimball Bent, a Maine man who flees the mindless cruelty of the British army that is policing New Zealand's young coastal settlements and runs haphazardly into the arms of rebellious tribes in the hinterlands. Bent had hoped to make it to the South Island gold fields, but the Maoris have other uses for him, and he is required to remain with them. Bent is the furthest thing from Kevin Costner's moony surfin' wolf dancer. Baffled by tribal politics and thoroughly revolted by ceremonial cannibalism, the unsentimental Yankee wants only to get out of the forest and then maybe back to Maine. Skirmish after skirmish with the British gradually wears him down until his loyalties shift to the Maoris. He never gets the hang of cannibalism (most of the Maoris are equally put off), but he does begin to hanker for a chief warrior's daughter who finds him not too unattractive as scrawny white men go. Bent is witness to a string of clever Maori victories that eventually--and very sadly--founder on the wicked rocks of family passions. Clever and unpretentious, remarkable for the subtle anti- touristic depiction of the islands and the natives. Suffers occasionally--but not fatally--from low blood pressure. -- Copyright �1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

The author of the critically acclaimed Season of the Jew here turns his attention to a little-known event in New Zealand's history: a fierce battle between the island's native Maori and British colonists, "the most extraordinary of the many wars fought by the Maori in the 19th century." At the center is a real figure, Kimball Bent, a rebellious, American-born British soldier who deserts his regiment and joins the natives in their insurrection against the imperialists. Once adopted by the Maori chieftain Titokowaru, commonly known as Titoko, Bent becomes as Maori as a white man can--he accepts cannibalism, enters into a symbolic marriage with another chieftain's daughter, participates in much bloody fighting and, with Titoko and his aides, engages in countless conversations that manage to touch on nearly all aspects of the human condition. The fast-moving, vivid tale presents riveting accounts of warfare, in which Titoko both defeats and is defeated by British soldiers. The narrative is propelled mainly through dialogue, much of it hilarious, as Bent struggles to puzzle out Maori habits and the tribesmen cope with his foreign ways--and fecund profanity. Shadbolt is an accomplished raconteur, and his dramatic, atmospheric story is a winner.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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