SAN ANTONE

by V.J. Banis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 29, 1985

Banis' previous novels (This Splendid Earth, 1978, and The Earth and All it Holds, 1980) were family-dynasty sagas set in the California wine country. In San Antone, the author moves to 19th-century Texas, and creates in the character of Joanna Harte an entrepreneurial tycoon who could go head-to-head with the best of that era's real-life robber barons. Torn from the genteel and pampered world of antebellum South Carolina by a drunken and abusive husband, who insists that his family migrate to a vast but undeveloped spread outside San Antonio, Joanna quickly begins to flex her independence and steely will. Immediately upon her arrival in Texas, she builds a ranch house to rival the Ewings' South Fork, and seemingly overnight, becomes the richest and most powerful cattle grower in the Southwest. If her ranch is Joanna's ruling passion, however, she still finds time to dominate and manipulate the lives of her children, whose destinies she seeks to direct toward the greatest good of her own ever-expanding empire. Towards the novel's close, her greedy and sexually depraved grandson precipitates a melodramatic crisis involving purloined oil rights. Joanna's very survival, already threatened by an outbreak of anthrax, is on the line, but she prevails, and the villains of the piece are vanquished in a scene that reads like an unintentional parody of Dickensian retribution. For all its wild implausibilities, though, this is an eminently entertaining novel. The author's talent for description and pacing is first-rate, and even the least likely plot turns never once keep the pages from turning.

Pub Date: Aug. 29, 1985

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Arbor House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1985

Categories: FICTION