The Bullet Swallower

James, Elizabeth Gonzalez. The Bullet Swallower. New York: Simopn & Schuster 2024. Print.

First Sentences:

Alferez Antonio Sonoro was born with gold in his eyes. The gold was sharp and it stung him so that he blinked uncontrollably and always carried a vial of salted water in his pocket. Of the four Sonoro brothers he was the only one thus signified, and his parents regarded it a blessing, incontestable proof of divine favor.


Description:

Sometimes just the title is so intriguing you at least have to open the book and check out the first sentences. Who can resist titles like some of my favorites: Last Night at the Brain Thieves Ball, The Burglar Who Liked to Quote Kipling, The Speed of Dark, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Go As a River, The Improbability of Love, The Man Who Understood Women, Summer Hours at the Robbers Library, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, and Quirkology? Books with these titles could have stories or information about virtually anything. Honestly, I feel any tempting title like these deserves to have at least the opening pages explored.

Add to this list Elizabeth Gonzalez James's tantalizing title, The Bullet Swallower. What kind of story could such a title allude to? Magicians? Gun fighters? Medical patients? Definitely intriguing enough to lure me in. And I wasn't in any way disappointed.

In 1895, Antonio Sonoro sets off from his tiny farm in Mexico to try to save his wife and children from starvation after a long drought. He is a bandit, a quick-witted survivor, skilled with a gun, a ruthless man from a long lineage of ruthless men who once ruled the area and accumulated vast riches from their gold mines using local people and harsh labor conditions. But time, bad luck, and an evil curse have reduced the Sonoro line to only Antonio and his family, with little hope of them ever regaining his luck and fortune.

Antonio's current plan? Rob a train across the border in Houston which he had heard was carrying gold. He convinces his younger brother, Hugo, to help him, but their plans run afoul and the Sonoros find themselves on the wrong side of the Texas Rangers.

The book follows Antonio on his nail-biting journey through the desert as he is simultaneously hunted by the Rangers, while at the same time doggedly seeking to meet up with these same lawmen so he can enact revenge on their leader.

He'd run from one certain death to another, and his chances of finding the Rangers were as good a finding a teardrop in the ocean. He hadn't seen a footprint in days, and he feared the silence and darkness and dead trees would swallow him...

Author James then jumps 70 years into the future to introduces a man named Jaime Sonoro. Jaime, a renown actor and singer, is living a comfortabl life with his family when he is given an ancient, moldy book describing the long, dark history of the Sonoro family, a name he shares but knows nothing about his history. He reads of iron-fisted rulers, men who flaunt humanity and the law to amass their fortune. But he also reads of the curse that trails this (his?) family in the form of bad luck. He also meets a mysterious figure, Remedio, who seems to know more about the family and their fateful lives. 

He saw, for the barest second, malice in Remedio's eyes, a bright white flame that was gone as soon as Jaime was aware of having see it, if he had seen it.

Could Jaime Sonoro be somehow related to this ill-fated family and thus carry the curse? And who exactly is this mysterious figure who has moved into their house and seems to have a quiet knowledge of the Sonoros?

And the feeling of being watched followed Jaime in and out of the house, the hair always tickling the back of his neck like something he'd forgotten, something urgent but out of reach. He began imagining men in long trench coats spying on him from behind newspapers....He felt camera eyes on him while he sat alone at his desk reading. Since the book had come into the house -- he'd been in the habit of turning on lights to peek inside closets, checking always who was behind him, peering through the curtains, half expecting to see a madman outside wielding a tommy gun.

It's an unusual book, beautifully written about some dastardly people and their quests for survival, money, revenge, and overcoming their destiny. I dove into it based on the title and soon found myself totally immersed in this complex family and history, as well as the current stories of the gun slinger as well as the modern actor/singer who might somehow be related.

And the interesting fact is that this story is based on the author's great grandfather, Antonio Gonzalez, who was a bandido in the last-1800s. He experienced much of the same history as the gunslinger Antonio Sonoro, even being left for dead at one point and referred to as "El Tragabalas," the Bullet Swallower, just like Sonoro. It was a story author James had frequently heard growing up, one that certainly adds a twist of reality to the novel. 

Everything in this book is true except for the stuff I made up." - Elizabeth Gonzalez James (author)

Highly recommended for sheer adventure, brilliant writing, and captivating story-telling. Gripping in every way.

Happy reading. 

 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

North, Anna. Outlawed.   

Ana, a young woman banished from her Western town in the 1980s, joins up with the Hole-In-The-Wall Gang, outlaws led by The Kid. But she learns this is no ordinary shoot-'em-up thugs. (previously reviewed here)

 

Outlawed

North, Anna. Outlawed. New York: Bloombury. 2021. Print.

First Sentences:
 

In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. Like a lot of things, it didn't happen all at once. First I had to get married.

Description:

 

Interesting first sentence, especially when readers quickly discover the "outlaw" is a woman in Anna North's novel, Outlawed. Set in the 1890's Old West, the story is narrated by Ada, a seventeen-year-old woman, joyous in the first months of her young marriage to her handsome husband. That is until he, his family, and the town suspect she is unable to become pregnant. 

In a world where barren women are hanged as witches, Ada is forced to flee to a convent and later runs away again to join the notorious Hole in the Wall gang (not the Paul Newman/Robert Redford one) led by the bigger-than-life figure known as "The Kid."

Ada is allow to join the small gang due to her medical skills learned in her youth while assisting her midwife mother. The Kid provides Ada shelter and a new family as part of the gang. She learns to ride and shoot a gun under the tutelage of other members until she is deemed skilled enough to accompany them on a stagecoach holdup, which leads to disastrous results. 

 

But The Kid has bigger plans for the gang than small time heists. That plan, while promising great rewards, involves deadly risks for everyone who participates. And the sheriff from Ada's hometown is still hunting for her to answer charges of putting curses other women to affect their childbirths, and jailing her for life.

 

I loved every one of these characters, from the sensitive Ada to the mythical Kid to all the members of the Hole in the Wall gang. And their tale is beautifully written by author North: descriptive, energetic, melancholy, and hopeful in the same paragraph. This is truly a book to be savored for its style, characters, setting, and story - each first rate, in my opinion. 

I'll leave you with one of Ada's reflections in the early morning light before a job.

The sky went from blue-black to royal blue to aquamarine and then, in the sudden manner of the mountain regions, bright with streaks of gold and pink like the tails of gleaming horses. The meadowlarks awoke, with songs that, on another day, would have made me smile. Coyotes chuckled in the predawn and then went silent, shamed out of the scavenging by the light of day.

Highly recommended.

 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Elwes, Cary. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of the Princess Bride

Recollections from the star of the wonderful adventure comedy, The Princess Bride, about the making of the movie, from ad-libbed comments by Billy Crystal that made Mandy Patinkin laugh so hard he broke a rib, to the weeks of sword fighting instruction, to Andre the Giant plowing around the landscape on a motorcycle, breaking Elwes toe in the process. Delightful.

News of the World

Jiles, Paulette. News of the World. New York: William Morrow. 2016. Print.

First Sentences:

Captain Kidd laid out the Boston Morning Journal on the lectern and began to read from the article on the Fifteenth Amendment.

He had been born in 1798 and the third war of his lifetime had ended five years ago and he hoped never to see another but now the news of the world aged him more than time itself.

Description:

In Paulette Jiles' novel News of the World I found a job I might be good at (had I been living in 1870). Civil War veteran Captain Jefferson Kidd tours the small towns of Texas armed with current issues of American and international newspapers. He rents a meeting hall, charges ten cents a head, and reads articles of interest to local townspeople hungry for news and entertainment. While there are still some anger in this southern state over the results of the Civil War, if Kidd can avoid talking about current politics he can usually make it through the presentation safely and move on to the next town.

At age seventy-one, he deserved peace like a river but apparently he wasn't going to get it at present.

But his well-ordered life is upset when his friend Britt, a freight hauler, asks him to return a ten-year-old girl to her relatives in San Antonio 600 miles away. The girl had been captured by the Kiowas five years earlier, but was recently released to the army to avoid battles with the soldiers. She spoke no English and definitely had not wanted to leave her Kiowa family. 

Kidd agrees to take her and together they start their long, dangerous trip. Johanna, (Kidd refers to her by her original name), slowly learns some English and gains trust in Kidd. Together they fight off a gang of men who want to buy Joanna for ugly purposes, but Joanna proves herself a valuable fighter when the going gets tough, even finding a unique use for the dimes Kidd had earned at his last lecture.

Throughout the journey, the two grow closer with each stop they make or person they encounter, or just as they walk and ride the miles closer to San Antonio. Kidd begins to wonder about his own life and what the best course of action would be for Johanna, a child who already had lost two families.

This is a gentle story of a hard world filled with choices, strong people, and survival. Kidd is a thinker and he contemplates what is right and wrong for Johanna as well as for himself as they face new people and the challenges of the harsh land around them. I loved the story and both of these interesting characters. Highly recommended.

Maybe life is just carrying news. Surviving to carry the news. Maybe we have just one message, and it is delivered to us when we are born and we are never sure what it says; it may have nothing to do with us personally but is must be carried by hand through a life, all the way, and at the end handed over, sealed.

Happy reading. 

Fred

(See more recommended books)
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Haruf, Kent. Plainsong

In the tiny Montana town of Holt, two elderly batchelor brother farmers take in a pregnant, friendless teenage girl and learn to open their lives and hearts to a new person.

The Poker Bride

Corbett, Christopher. The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the West. New York: Atlantic Monthly. 2010. Print.

First Sentences:

The old woman came own out of the mountains in central Idaho the same way she had gone in more than half a century earlier: on the back of a saddle horse, across some of the most rugged and remote country in the American West

Description:

While most of us have some knowledge of the California Gold Rush of 1849 and subsequent mining in territories like Alaska, Nevada, and Idaho, few know of the vast immigration of Chinese men seeking gold and how they changed this country. That fascinating story is told in Christopher Corbett's thoroughly-researched The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the West.

Corbett uses the real life story of Polly Bemis as background for bringing us into this historic era. Polly was a Chinese girl sold into prostitution by her family (for them to survive) and later shipped to San Francisco as a "Soiled Dove" for the brothels of the Gold Rush era. Polly was eventually won in a poker game by Charlie Bemis, a gambler living on an isolated farm on the Salmon River in Idaho. He and his "Poker Bride" moved to a isolated farm where they lived for decades and even married, an unheard of occurrence for a white man and a Chinese woman at that time.

But the majority of The Poker Bride tell the details of the Gold Rush in California. Corbett uses exhaustive research into diaries, newspaper articles, interviews, and books of that era to weave a detailed look at the people and the energy behind that age. We learn of the first discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill (both the discoverer of gold as well as the owner of the land ended up without a penny), the abandoning of every ship in San Francisco Bay as crews desert their posts to hunt for gold, and the rough-and-tumble, lawless towns exploding around mines and rumors of riches.

The Chinese came to California, too, but came as free men seeking their fortunes. They obtained jobs in laundries and restaurants, building railroads, and performing other tasks that American men disdained. The work was hard, but no harder than the abject poverty of their lives in China. Eventually, there were so many Chinese in California that laws were passed to restrict immigration and deport those already living there.

But Polly is saved from deportation by marrying Charlie and living in the wilds of Idaho, a farm that took days on the back of a mule to reach. There they lived with their pet cougar for 60 years, never seeing a train, a car, electricity, or other modern devices.

You can hear the voices of the old prospectors, the sheriffs, and farmers, and so many others via Corbett's quotes from interviews taken from original source documents. It was a wild time of ambition, greed, and hope for a better life for everyone from Polly and Charlie to the miners, to the immigrating Chinese. Corbett captures this era perfectly, painting a picture of an era and its people rarely examined in such depth. A strong retelling of this wild, optimistic age.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Corbett, Christopher. Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express

History of the short-lived Pony Express enterprise taken from interviews, articles, and diaries, separating the heroes from the liars. Covers the beginning of the Pony Express and the aftermath as the legend grows.

The Sisters Brothers

DeWitt, Patrick. The Sisters Brothers. New York: Ecco. 201. Print.

First Sentences:

I was sitting outside the Commodore's mansion, waiting for my brother Charlie to come out with news of the job.

Description:

In 1851, the job Eli Sisters and his brother Charlie will take on is to kill a man who stole something from their employer, a man known simply as the Commodore. After all, they are the Commodore's hired guns and are quite good at their craft. Sounds like a typical shoot-em-up story set in the Gold Rush days, huh? 

But Patrick DeWitt's deadpan funny novel The Sisters Brothers is anything but typical or predictable. It is full of dark, quirky humor, ruminations about life, and spare, honest dialogue  

As Eli narrates their journey from Oregon City to San Francisco in his formal sentences, we learn more and more about these two brothers. Sure, they are cold, remorseless killers who have quick tempers and even quicker trigger fingers. But they also have ... well, really not much that redeems them. 

Yet we (I, at least) are riveted by them, root for them to overcome obstacles (human and non), and sympathize with them when results from their decisions run counter to the intentions. They are not cruel; they are simply loyal to The Commodore and their job. They have a bond between them as brothers willing to talk things out with each other and those they encounter with whom they have disagreements. What's not to like about these two other than their propensity for shooting people?

He is not bad, I don't think. Perhaps he is simply too lazy to be good.

Along the trail they encounter a variety of fellow travelers and wandering souls: a man who constantly weeps, an inventor with a gold-finding formula, trappers seeking the fame of killing the Sisters, prospectors, prostitutes, storekeepers, a dentist, a red-furred bear, and a broken down, one-eyed horse. There is drinking and shooting and injuries, of course, but the overall tenor is strangely funny, if tinged with sadness.

The creak of bed springs suffering under the weight of a restless man is as lonely a sound as I know. 

Hard to describe this slim book, but I highly recommend it for its characters, its calm narrative style, and its musings on life, death, and the undying relationship between two brothers. 

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood

Two young men, looking for hidden money, murder a family in the midwest. Their interviews, personalities, and history make up this fascinating, tautly-written history (previously reviewed here)

Beverly, Bill. Dodgers

Four teenage gang members are sent from inner city Los Angeles to the Midwest to kill a key witness against their gang leader. Along the way they try to preserve their perceived toughness in the cold of Wisconsin, trying to deal with the various competing personalities in their car, and facing decisions about violence and duty. (previously reviewed here) 

Juliet in August

Warren, Dianne. Juliet in August. New York: Putnam. 2010. Print.

First Sentences:

It was the end of August, before the Perry Land and Cattle Company's fall gather, and the ranch cowboys had too much time on their hands

They were standing around the dusty yard watching the horses swat flies with their tails when the young buck, Ivan Dodge, somehow managed to convinced on of the old veteran cowboys -- Henry Merchant was his name -- to meet his challenge of a hundred-mile horse race through the dunes and the grasslands of the Little Snake Hills..

Description:

Just after finishing Dianne Warren's uniquely satisfying novel Juliet in August, I had a dream that included her characters. It's not often a book affects with me like that, but such is the staying power of Warren's tales of people living in a small town on the edge of the western United States.

Warren, a noted short story writer, offers chapters of seemingly stand-alone tales of strong, independent people. But eventually the characters and stories overlap as the townspeople run into each other, talk about their neighbors, help friends with problems, and reminisce on legends of historical figures and events. What emerges is a wide-ranging portrait of a people, their relationships, and the environment they call home.

There is the story of an Arabian horse which escapes from its trailer and wanders to a nearby farm, only to be found by a farmer and ridden on a meandering 100-mile ride through the countryside. Then there is rancher heavily in debt who contemplates the evilness of the banker who won't extend his loan one more time. There are episodes in the banker's life as he sadly contemplates what actions he must take to his friends who cannot repay money owed. There's a lovely, slow-developing relationship between a restaurant owner and a quiet landowner. And so many more solid tales of real people trying to understand and succeed in relationships with family, friends, and their own inner beings.

This is a lovely collection of stories woven into a novel of the life of individuals intertwined in a small town. Juliet in August is expertly written in a sure hand. Warren is a master storyteller, but more importantly someone with a clear knowledge of the emotions, hopes, and uncertainties felt by people in this tiny town as well as the world.

A brilliant read, one not soon forgotten (as I found out).

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Young, Carrie. Nothing To Do But Stay

Wonderful recollections about the people and life in the small farming community on the North Dakota plains. (previously reviewed here)

Haruf, Kent. Plainsong

More wonderful recollections about the people and life in the small farming community on the North Dakota plains.

Coplin, Amanda. The Orchardist

A reclusive rancher takes in two pregnant runaway teen girls and faces the questions of how his and their lives will change by this action. (previously reviewed here)  

The High Divide

Enger, Lin. The High Divide: A Novel. New York: Algonquin. 2014. Print.

First Sentences:

That summer was cool and windless, the clouds unrelenting, as if God had reached out his hand one day and nudge the sun from its rightful place.

Way out on the lip of the northern plains the small town lay hidden in fog, the few moving about at this hour ghostlike, not quite solid: the shopkeepers, the man driving his water-wagon, the dressmaker with her quick, smooth strides. In a clapboard house a stone's throw from the river, a lean, squared-shouldered man knelt before an old flattop trunk.

Description:

Picture yourself stretched out on the grass next to a stream in some friendly woods. Dappled sun, light breeze, the water gurgling. Complete relaxation.

Now imagine someone sitting nearby, out of sight, reading to you in a soft, soothing voice. Sometimes the words blend with the sounds of the river, gently washing over you in your relaxed state. Simple, quiet words with the strength to penetrate your dreams and create a world of images, people, and life.

Such was the effect on me of Lin Enger's new book The High Divide: A Novel. High Divide and the storytelling skills of Enger lulled me deep into its languid story of love, separation, guilt, forgiveness, and redemption. I was completely absorbed by the simple phrasings and clear pictures of life and hard landscape of the western prairie of Minnesota in the late 1800s. 

Ulysses Pope, a carpenter, husband, and father of two young boys, leaves his rustic Minnesota farm and family early one morning, leaving only a note that reads, "A chance for work, hard cash." Six weeks later after no further communication, his sons sneak away from their home to look for him, riding trains and venturing into cities far beyond their comprehension to guess at his trail, relying on the kindness of strangers but also facing the hostilities of others.

With all her three men gone Gretta, Ulysses' wife, decides to set out in a different direction to search for her sons and her husband. She worries that what she finds might answer questions about her quiet husband, his military life in the Civil War, and possibly a world involving another woman. But Gretta's money has run out and therefore must forge ahead to at least get Ulysses to settle their debts.

And who really is this Ulysses and what are his reasons to desert the family he loves without an explanation? As we walk with him and his dogged pursuit of his secret quest, we realize that he is a kind, strong man, but also one driven by inner demons kept from his family and beyond their power to overcome.

Each chapter follows one of these individuals on their travels as they slowly gain wisdom, strength, and experience that hopefully will lead them to their goal. The travelers encounter Civil War friends, Indians, a Smithsonian Museum curator, buffalo, and a mysterious woman who help or frustrate their quests.

The strong, quiet writing style in High Divide is suburb. Author Enger's words flow over you as if you are listening to a hidden voice gently relating an epic story of strong-willed people and the challenges they face. Enger's power of description brings each character and the old West vividly alive. Look at how he describes Ulysses' younger son;

[His son] still gave off that clean child-smell, like carrots pulled from the garden. 

Can the longing for a home, a family, and a place in life, be more clearly and strongly stated by Gretta as she considers her life?  

Home was something that should compass about you like the wind, Gretta thought -- you shouldn't have to think about it. And you certainly shouldn't have to build it out of nothing at all, with only love and your bare hands, the way she'd had to do.

So grab a comfy chair in front of the fire, sit under a tree, or loll in bed as Enger's words flow over you and incase you into the world of Ulysses and Gretta in the 1880s. A lovely, lovely experience.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Young, Carrie. Nothing to Do But Stay

Wonderful memoir about the people and life in the small farming community on the North Dakota plains. (previously reviewed here)