Longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
âCuyahoga is tragic and comic, hilarious and inventiveâa 19th-century legend for 21st-century Americaâ (The Boston Globe).
Big Son is a spirit of the timesâthe times being 1837. Behind his broad shoulders, shiny hair, and church-organ laugh, Big Son practically made Ohio City all by himself. The feats of this proto-superhero have earned him wonder and whiskey, but very little in the way of fortune. And without money, Big cannot become an honest husband to his beloved Cloe (who may or may not want to be his honest wife).
In pursuit of a steady wage, our hero hits the (dirt) streets of Ohio City and Cleveland, the twin towns racing to become the first great metropolis of the West. Their rivalry reaches a boil over the building of a bridge across the Cuyahoga Riverâand Big stumbles right into the kettle. The resulting misadventures involve elderly terrorists, infrastructure collapse, steamboat races, wild pigs, and multiple ruined weddings.
Narrating this âvery funny, rambunctious debut novelâ (Los Angeles Times) tale is Medium Sonâknown as Meedâapprentice coffin maker, almanac author, orphan, and the younger brother of Big. Meed finds himself swept up in the action, and he is forced to choose between brotherly love and his own ambitions. His uncanny voiceâplain but profound, colloquial but poeticâelevates a slapstick frontier tale into a âbreezy fable of empire, class, conquest, and ecocideâ (The New York Times Book Review).
Evoking the Greek classics and the Bible alongside nods to Looney Tunes, Charles Portis, and Flannery OâConnor, Pete Beatty has written âa hilarious and moving exploration of family, home, and fate [and] you wonât read anything else like it this yearâ (BuzzFeed).
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