Paulette Jiles has written a truly exquisite novel, News of the World. The story begins in 1870, Texas. I rarely read a book twice, but I found myself rereading some of my favorite parts in this tender novel.
Captain Jefferson Kidd, a respected man in his seventies and a veteran of two wars, makes his living by traveling through Texas reading to audiences hungry for news. World news, local news, exotic news, he reads any news that takes people from the here and now and fires their imagination with the happenings of elsewhere. He slants his newspaper reading to the taste of his audience at a dime a person. On one of his trips he is approached by an acquaintance, a freighter, who has been commissioned by the Army to return a ten-year old girl, a Kiowa captive, to her family 400 miles away. The freighter cannot leave his business that long, and gives the Captain the $50 gold piece the Army has given him to have the girl returned to her relatives.
Captain Kidd agrees, but with some misgivings. The girl, Johanna, though white with blond hair and blue eyes, acts thoroughly Kiowan. She was six when her captors brutally killed her mother, father and sister. But, surprisingly, she longs for her Kiowa family. She doesn’t remember any English, nor does she have mannerisms of the “civilized.” Captain Kidd sympathizes with the girl who has been torn away from her birth family, and now from her adopted family.
With the $50 gold piece, he purchases a wagon and they begin their journey through unsettled and unforgiving territory, all the while watching for thieves, Indians, the often-corrupt federal army, and always on the lookout for those who would kidnap the girl to sell. He must also watch for her attempts to escape. The two face many dangers and physical hardships traveling across Texas.
As the miles pass, they draw closer to one another. Johanna senses Captain Kidd’s kindness and generous heart, and he worries that his little charge won’t be able to accept yet another drastic change in her life.
News of the World is an outstanding novel. I loved it; a sheer delight to read.