MARTIN'S LAND

In 1785 Henry Martin, untutored but ambitious, leaves the newly independent United States and settles in Spanish Louisiana (Missouri). Adopted by the Osage tribe, he cleaves his way to a position of importance on the turbulent frontier. The huge land grant given him by the Spaniards becomes the bone of contention among his sons. Two, born of Indian mothers, ally themselves against the twins his white wife gave him. All four die in the bitter struggle. This is a sweeping tale of a savage land and savage times, and Martin in a product of both. The story is replete with slaughter, rape, torture, sexual intimacies and a frank idiom. The 'sex' and obscenities do not seem to be brought in merely to titillate or scandalize, but the going gets pretty rough at times. A brawling, colorful fictionalization of life, ambition, and violence on the early trans-Mississippi frontier, and a part of the panel which has already included Brood of Fury and Hangman's Song.