THE HOMESTEAD

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1990

Tangled but compelling literary melodrama--the story of a Wyoming family torn apart by an attempted murder--from the author of Desert Light (1987) and two books of nonfiction (Roughnecking It, 1982; Saltbound, 1980). After serving in Vietnam, Sam Houston Walker bummed around the wilds of Alaska and Australia for years before settling down in South Africa to run a big-game safari. He's there avoiding ""charging Cape Buffalo and wounded leopards""--as well as the scantily clad wives of clients--when he receives a telegram saying that his younger brother Jack has nearly killed a man back on the family ranch outside of Fontenelle, Wyoming. Sam immediately flies back home to learn that Jack has beaten Frank Joad into a coma, ostensibly because the man--an employee of a hated oil company--was trespassing. But there's more to it than meets the eye: Jack is a belligerent young alcoholic; and Frank Joad was not only once married to Jack's girlfriend, but is courting Jack's beloved sister Clarice. And the pretty young wife of Jack's lawyer--Chuck Richardson, the protagonist of Desert Light--turns out to be kind of sweet on Jack, making for a good deal more tension. Before any of this can be resolved, Jack is conveniently killed in a bull-riding accident at a rodeo, but Sam has certainly learned that going home again can be an extremely iffy proposition. Sam Walker leads a life straight out of an old-fashioned men's magazine, and that's the tightrope Williamson's plot walks. When the author succumbs to macho and melodrama, the book fails badly; but, at his best, he offers a taut, exciting tale of the modern West.

Pub Date: March 1, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Grove Weidenfeld

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990

Categories: FICTION