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Elizabeth Crook (1)

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5 verk 674 medlemmar 35 recensioner

Verk av Elizabeth Crook

The Night Journal (2006) 335 exemplar
The Which Way Tree (2018) 156 exemplar
Monday, Monday (2014) 86 exemplar
The Raven's Bride (1991) 66 exemplar

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The Which Way Tree by Elizabeth Crook is the story of a brother, Benjamin, a sister, Samantha and a panther. The panther attacks Sam but was pulled away from the child by her mother, who ended up getting badly mauled and died from the attack. Samantha was both physically and emotionally scarred and vowed that she would kill this panther.
After also losing their father, the two orphans carry on as best as they can but the story gets really interesting when a few years later, the panther returns.

The story is narrated by teenage Ben who writes a series of very descriptive letters and sends them to a circuit judge as evidence against the villain Hanlin who is wanted for murder and robbery. Ben & Samantha end up as part of a panther hunting party with a Mexican man called Pachero, who may or may not be a bandit, and the elderly Preacher Dob and his dog, Zachariah. The villain Hanlin confronts them again as he wants money from the Mexican and revenge upon Samantha who shot off his finger in a previous scuffle.

While Ben struggles with right and wrong and tries to always do the right thing, he often loses his patience with Samantha but he is protective of her. Samantha is obsessed by her vendetta against the panther. Although she is a mulatto and Ben’s half sister, her abrasive personality dominates the hunting party. As Ben writes about his sister, “she is not a joy to look at or to be with”. I really enjoyed this adventure story set just after the Civil War in the Hill Country of Texas. The characters were diverse and had an authentic feel about them and the story was quite simply a damn good yarn.
… (mer)
½
 
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DeltaQueen50 | 10 andra recensioner | Feb 3, 2024 |
The Which Way Tree is an enthralling adventure set in Civil War-era Texas. This was a very fun, fast-paced story. The Which Way Tree paints a picture of harsh, stark life in the Old West that maybe stretches plausibility a bit in pursuit of a satisfying narrative. What makes this story unique is that it is an epistolary novel. The Which Way Tree is comprised of letters from our narrator Benjamin which serve as his grand jury testimony in the matter of murder and highway robbery, in the County of Bandera, in April of 1866. We look upon the events of the book with our narrator, Benjamin Shreve, guiding us through his past. This gives the novel an antiquated and folksy feel that won me over.

Benjamin tells us about how a panther mauled his 6-year-old half sister (Samantha) while his stepmother fought it long enough to save the girl but how it took her own life. The incident leaves young Sam disfigured and bent on vengeance. Six years later, she and Ben, having also lost their father to “fever,” are living miserably by themselves when the big cat returns. Their efforts to trap the beast fall short, but they find an ally in a Mexican man named Pacheco while they make a dire enemy of a Confederate soldier named Hanlin, who aims a gun at Sam in their first confrontation and loses a finger when she gets off a lucky shot. Also lucky is Hanlin’s knowledge of a dog in the vicinity that specializes in panther tracking and is owned by his uncle, Preacher Dob. After much palaver, Hanlin departs, for a time, while Dob and his old dog join the quest to track the panther, known to some as El Demonio.

The action is suspenseful and fast-paced; the narrative flows seamlessly; the dialogue often laugh-out-loud funny (“Preacher Dobb said, Vengeance belongs to the Lord, Samantha. She said, Only if he can beat me to it.”). Crook’s research is evident in the period details, rhythms of speech, and history.

Benjamin notes that Samantha’s obsession with the panther is like that of Captain Ahab’s obsession with Moby-Dick. That story is an obvious parallel to The Which Way Tree; a less obvious parallel is Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. This book features a diverse cast of travelers, who join Sam and Ben on their adventure.

Sam might remind you of Mattie Ross from True Grit but she's a bit more hell-bent in her ambitions. Give this book a try. You'll grow to love both her and Ben.

Check this book out for a good yarn.
… (mer)
 
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ryantlaferney87 | 10 andra recensioner | Dec 8, 2023 |
Naturally, I liked the Moby Dick structure, but this seemed verbose and the unbelievable letter-writing conceit wore on me.
 
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markm2315 | 10 andra recensioner | Jul 1, 2023 |
Late in the morning on Monday, August 1, 1966, former Marine Charles Whitman carried an arsenal of weapons to the top of the clock tower on the University of Texas campus in Austin, took aim from the observation deck, and began shooting. By the time he was done, fifteen people lay dead and many more wounded. Elizabeth Crook’s novel, Monday, Monday, opens on that fateful day, with student Shelly Maddox leaving her math class, going outside and setting off across the plaza, where her life is forever altered when she is hit by one of Whitman’s bullets. Two other students, Wyatt Calvert and Jack Stone, who are cousins, see what is happening and do what they can to help the wounded, Shelly among them, even as bullets continue to rain down. Crook’s novel expands outward from these interactions: Wyatt cradling Shelly in his arms sheltering her from further injury, Jack being wounded as he tries to help someone else. Afterward, survivors of the shooting struggle to recover and resume lives brutally interrupted. But Shelly, single, and Wyatt, married, discover their shared experience has bound them inextricably together. It is an exclusive bond: in each other, they discover something that no one else will ever understand. The attraction is magnetic and physical, and Shelly soon finds that she is pregnant. The story that follows encompasses many lives and unspools over several decades. Shelly, Wyatt and Jack move in different directions and build separate lives, but their decisions ensure they will always remain linked. Crook’s characters don’t always behave admirably: their actions can be selfish and wilful and sometimes result in others getting hurt. Inevitably, there comes a time when secrets harboured for decades must, for the good of everyone and despite the consequences, be dragged into the light of day. The novel tells a multi-generational story filled with flawed, haunted characters who have suffered and triumphed but who ultimately come face to face with a distressing dilemma. Readers will find that Crook is a supremely empathetic writer, able to inhabit multiple points of view and do so convincingly. She is also a writer who unashamedly skirts the edges of melodrama but, for the most part, avoids tugging unduly at heartstrings. In Monday, Monday Elizabeth Crook has conjured a suspenseful and emotionally fraught story with an engaging historical backdrop that depicts in vividly dramatic terms the profound impact that random acts can have on peoples’ lives, and how the echoes of trauma reverberate through the years.… (mer)
 
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icolford | 12 andra recensioner | Apr 11, 2022 |

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Statistik

Verk
5
Medlemmar
674
Popularitet
#37,468
Betyg
3.8
Recensioner
35
ISBN
59
Språk
1

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