This one took me a hot minute. I normally find my reading groove in the summer pretty quickly, but the dense language in this one forced me to take my time.

That being said, I’m so glad I finished it. It’s a western with sprawling landscapes and an overall wildness that I deeply enjoyed. The story rotates between two characters: Lurie is a Muslim immigrant from the Turkish Empire who feels a deep connection to the “ghosts” of his ill-fainted companions. He joins the United States Camel Corps and rides with them west from Texas. Nora is a hard, stalwart Arizona woman fighting to keep her family alive in the dust of summer. In her loneliness, she speaks with the “ghost” of her late daughter. The novel explores the heartache, resilience, and brutality of life in the American West for those on the outside.

This book is like a reading a Southern Gothic but set in a 1970’s Western. It explores a wholly new kind of American myth, and I loved getting to see inside Lurie and Nora’s minds.

Best Words:

“But we remembered, you and I. It saddened me. Who would speak of these things when we were gone? So, too, must the makers of those distant fires have asked themselves as they fought the fading of their world. I began to wish that I could pour our memories into the water we carried, so that anyone drinking might see how it had been.”