Now Read This: ‘News of the World’ by Paulette Jiles

“News of the World” takes place in post-Civil War Texas. Seventy-year-old Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through Texas giving public readings from newspapers to audiences hungry for events of the world. Early on in the story, he meets up with three black traders who ask him to return a 10-year-old girl to her family in San Antonio. For the past four years, Johanna Leonberger has lived with the Kiowa, who killed her parents and sister. She remembers nothing of her life before the Kiowa — she speaks no English and by white standards is uncivilized.

Captain Kidd buys a wagon and they start their journey, much to the reluctance and outrage of the undomesticated Johanna. The 400-mile odyssey south proves dangerous, winding through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain. Johanna and Kidd begin to respect as well as need one another. What cements their alliance is facing many obstacles along the way, including the unmerciful landscape, a lack of weapons, and a vicious cowboy and his companions, who want to kill Kidd and use the girl for their own foul purposes. A very creative gunfight ensues with them.

As one might expect, Kidd and Johanna eventually develop a deep and affectionate relationship, so much so that when they arrive at the Leonbergers’ home, the captain must make a difficult choice about whether to leave the girl there or hold on to her himself. The relationship between the captain and Johanna reminded me of the similar relationship in “True Grit.”

I’ve only read one other book by Paulette Jiles, titled “Enemy Women.” It follows Adair, the daughter of modest farmers in the Missouri Ozarks, who is wrongly accused of enemy collaboration by the Union militia, as she falls in love with her interrogator and embarks on a perilous journey to find her family. Both “Enemy Women” and “News of the World” feed my love for historical fiction.

NoveList compares Jiles’ writing style to that of Tracy Chevalier and Geraldine Brooks. Brooks wrote one of my favorite books, “People of the Book.” In that book, a young Australian book conservator is called to analyze the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a priceless 600-year-old Jewish prayer book that has been salvaged from a destroyed Bosnian library. It is amazing what history she is able to discover by scraps and stains that are left in the book.

Happy readings!

Betty Martin