The Way To Bright Star
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Ben Butterfield, ex-circus performer, is living out his days in a small backwater town. He spends much of his time dwelling on the past, pondering his glory days with the circus, and his first grand adventure—an odyssey across Missouri and Illinois to Bright Star, Indiana, during the Civil War. It was a journey that laid the groundwork for the man he would become, and on which he got to know the two people who meant the world to him, and still do.
In 1862, Ben sets out to help Johnny Hawkes, a resourceful Texican, drive two camels to the farm home of a Yankee officer who has taken possession of the desert beasts as contraband of war. But when Johnny is imprisoned by the Yankees and charged with horse theft, it is up to Ben to complete the task without his friend and mentor. On the threshold of manhood, he has only the help of a young girl, nicknamed Princess, who spends most of the time masquerading as a boy to avoid drawing unwanted attention. Johnny and Princess must stand together and persevere against the odds if they are to overcome every obstacle placed before them on the winding way to Bright Star.
A magnificent tour of 1860s heartland America, The Way to Bright Star is a grand coming-of-age novel, in the tradition of Huckleberry Finn, and destined to become an American classic.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Returning to the westerns he tells so well, Brown, best known for Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1971), takes us on a peculiar odyssey of youth and innocence during the turmoil of the Civil War. The spirited tale opens in 1902, when narrator Ben Butterfield, a gimp-legged former circus horseback performer who is now the harried proprietor of a hardware store, attempts "to set down the story of my wasted life" before he forgets the adventure that was its high point. Forty years earlier, in the spring of 1862 in northwest Arkansas, young Ben embarks on an unlikely journey. A Yankee officer assigns him, cavalry scout Johnny Hawkes and Egyptian cameleer Hadjee the duty of transporting two camels, the officer's own personal contraband, from Arkansas to his farm in Bright Star, Indiana. Traveling across Arkansas and Missouri in 1862 turns out to be a tricky proposition as Ben and his comrades meet Rebs and Yanks, shysters, thieves and all-around mean-spirited folks. After witnessing a bungled bank robbery, Ben's party offers sanctuary to a luckless robber who turns out to be a young girl. Now fugitive themselves, the party is pursued by the law and by a crazy gunman--who is after more than just gold. Short on action but studded with colorful vignettes, this sentimental story reflects, both buoyantly and tenderly, the moments of love, friendship and fame its Huckleberry Finn-like protagonist briefly enjoyed.
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