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A charged and eloquent novel about a young woman caught in the midst of the range wars in the American West at the turn of the century Orphaned after the death of her mother, eighteen-year-old Esther Chambers heads west in search of her only living relative. In the lawless frontier town of Century, Oregon, she’s met by a sunburnt, laconic cattle wrangler: her distant cousin, Ferris Pickett. Within days, Esther is perjuring herself at the county clerk’s office, swearing that she is twenty-one and ready for the rigors of homesteading. Pick leads her to a tiny cabin that shows daylight at the chinks, and Esther begins her new life on the small lake called Half-a-Mind. If she can hold out for five years, the land will join Pick’s already impressive spread. Land—there’s a lot of it wide-open in Century but, somehow, not enough. Esther has arrived in the middle of a range war; it’s cattle against sheep, and water’s at a premium. Small incidents of violence swiftly escalate; before long, blood spills on the dry ground, and the railroad starts to think twice about laying tracks through Century. No railroad means no town, something Pick and his men will go to any lengths to prevent. Meanwhile, Esther finds her sympathies divided between her cousin and a sheepherder named Ben Cruff, a sworn enemy of the cattle ranchers. As her passion for Ben and her land grows, she begins to see how at odds these things are with her cousin’s own interests. She can’t be loyal to both; at some point she’ll have to make a terrible choice. Little Century maps our country’s cutthroat legacy of dispossession and greed; it also celebrates the ecstatic visions of what America could become. Through Esther’s story, which veers between triumph and heartbreak, we see the American West as it was being forged. In the tradition of classics like My Ántonia and There Will Be Blood, Little Century is a resonant and moving debut novel by a gifted writer.
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Summary
Summary
Barnes & Noble Discover Award
A Kirkus Reviews “New and Notable Title”
A charged and eloquent novel about a young woman caught in the midst of the range wars in the American West at the turn of the century
Orphaned after the death of her mother, eighteen-year-old Esther Chambers heads west in search of her only living relative. In the lawless frontier town of Century, Oregon, she’s met by a sunburnt,
laconic cattle wrangler: her distant cousin, Ferris Pickett. Within days, Esther is perjuring herself at the county clerk’s office, swearing that she is twenty-one and ready for the
rigors of homesteading. Pick leads her to a tiny cabin that shows daylight at the chinks, and Esther begins her new life on the small lake called Half-a-Mind. If she can hold out for five years,
the land will join Pick’s already impressive spread.
Land—there’s a lot of it wide-open in Century but, somehow, not enough. Esther has arrived in the middle of a range war; it’s cattle against sheep, and water’s at a premium. Small incidents of
violence swiftly escalate; before long, blood spills on the dry ground, and the railroad starts to think twice about laying tracks through Century. No railroad means no town, something Pick and his
men will go to any lengths to prevent. Meanwhile, Esther finds her sympathies divided between her cousin and a sheepherder named Ben Cruff, a sworn enemy of the cattle ranchers. As her passion for
Ben and her land grows, she begins to see how at odds these things are with her cousin’s own interests. She can’t be loyal to both; at some point she’ll have to make a terrible choice.
Little Century maps our country’s cutthroat legacy of dispossession and greed; it also celebrates the ecstatic visions of what America could become. Through Esther’s story, which veers
between triumph and heartbreak, we see the American West as it was being forged. In the tradition of classics like My Ántonia and There Will Be Blood, Little Century is a
resonant and moving debut novel by a gifted writer.
Editorial Reviews
Editorial Reviews
Reviews
Reviews
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Go west, young woman!
- When 18-year-old Esther Chambers’ mother dies suddenly in Chicago just as the 19th century is turning to the 20th, Esther finds herself alone in the world, without family or prospects for the future. Invited to the Oregon frontier by Ferris Pickett, a distant cousin whom she has never met, Esther accepts his offer to take her in and boards a westbound train. Upon arrival in the rough-hewn hamlet of Century, in the high desert of Peterson County, Oregon, Esther learns that things are more complicated than they seem on the wind-blown range lands surrounding Century. An ongoing feud over grazing land between the cattle ranchers and the sheep herders is escalating and turning more bitter, vindictive and violent by the day. Esther is the greenest greenhorn that a city girl could be, but she is also a quick study. Before long, she is questioning the official version of everything she’s learned since coming to Oregon. When her good friend Joe Peaslee, the eccentric owner of Century’s general store, goes missing, Esther has more questions than ever. Tavia Gilbert’s narration buoys up the story and carries the listener along. She is a natural for Esther’s ingenue voice and point of view, and is equally adept at portraying the range of other characters, from the gossiping womenfolk of Century to the rough-and-tumble buckaroos (they hate to be called cowboys). She makes it easy to forget that you’re hearing just one person read from a page, as the people of 1900 Oregon come to life all around you.
Details
Details
Available Formats : | Digital Download, Digital Rental, CD, MP3 CD |
Category: | Fiction |
Runtime: | 9.87 |
Audience: | Adult |
Language: | English |
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