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Shadow Country

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 1,596 ratings · 382 reviews

2008 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER

Peter Matthiessen’s great American epic–Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man’s River, and Bone by Bone–was conceived as one vast mysterious novel, but because of its length it was originally broken up into three books. In this bold new rendering, Matthiessen has cut nearly a third of the overall text and collapsed the time frame while deepening th...more

Hardcover, Modern Library, 892 pages

Published April 8th 2008 by Modern Library (first published 2008)

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Feb 01, 2013 Christopher rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, 500-pages-or-more, american, national-book-award, favorites

Here lies Edgar Artemas Watson.

The book opens on a scene of destruction: a hurricane has ravaged the Ten Thousand Islands region of Florida. A posse of Watson's neighbors forms and on the ruined beach they kill Watson as he arrives on shore. The end of this man's life marks the beginning of this epic story. The duty of the rest of the almost 900 pages of this book is to answer these questions: who is Watson and why was he killed? Was it a just or unjust death? Who did he leave behind? Was he a m...more

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Mar 13, 2009 Bruce rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In the early 1990s, Peter Matthiessen wrote his Watson trilogy, a 1400 page work that his publishers, to his discomfort, insisted on publishing in three volumes. Never satisfied with the work, feeling that it was disjointed and insufficiently integrated, Matthiessen began a number of years ago revising and extensively reworking the story, modifying it apparently significantly, and he published the new work last year as Shadow Country. I never read the trilogy – indeed, the only Matthiessen work...more In the early 1990s, Peter Matthiessen wrote his Watson trilogy, a 1400 page work that his publishers, to his discomfort, insisted on publishing in three volumes. Never satisfied with the work, feeling that it was disjointed and insufficiently integrated, Matthiessen began a number of years ago revising and extensively reworking the story, modifying it apparently significantly, and he published the new work last year as Shadow Country. I never read the trilogy – indeed, the only Matthiessen work I’d previously read was his magnificent book, The Snow Leopard – but this new book, itself almost 900 pages, is one of the most gripping and moving novels I’ve ever read. It is based upon the life of a real person, E.J. Watson, a sugar cane grower and legendary personage of the Florida frontier at the turn of the 20th century, a man around whom stories of violence accumulated and who was apparently shot dead by a crowd of neighbors and acquaintances in 1910.

The novel is organized in a fascinating and effective way. The first chapter of Book One describes Watson’s killing, the remainder of the Book being broken into multiple chapters, each from the perspective of one of 16 different characters who reflect upon who Watson was, their knowledge and experience of him, and events as they interpreted them up till his death. Book Two is about Watson’s son Lucius and his twenty-year quest to understand what happened on that fateful day, to learn who his father really was, and, at least at the onset of his search, to gain a measure of vindication and justice for his father. Book Three is told by Watson himself, beginning with the first two decades of his life in Edgefield and Clouds Creek, South Carolina, during Reconstruction, moving to the primary site of Watson’s story and life, the Ten Thousand Islands region of the southwestern Florida coast (interrupted by a brief sojourn in Oklahoma), and telling his story from his own perspective up to, yes, the instant of his death.

Matthiessen is a master story-teller, his skills of description making places and persons come alive with a vividness that is startling, his ability to evoke specific and present detail and mood no doubt a result in part to his own Zen background; I found myself haunted by the sea, the vegetation, and the harsh landscape of a part of the country with which I was unfamiliar. Matthiessen’s characterizations are subtle and distinctive, his ear for dialect exquisite, and his portrayal of racial and socio-cultural differences acute and sensitive. His sense of pace and gradual revelation in the novel are highly efficacious, leading the reader through a labyrinthine story with aplomb and without confusion, like Ariadne and her thread.

This is a powerful and, indeed, almost hypnotic novel, one of the best I’ve read, and I recommend it highly.

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Jan 05, 2011 Briynne rated it 4 of 5 stars

I swear I will never think of Florida the same again. Gone is my impression of an overly air conditioned world of old people wearing Bermuda shorts and long black socks. This book was brilliant and terrifying and drenched in blood. It’s set in the “Ten Thousand Islands” of the Florida Everglades beginning in the late 1800s when it was as lawless as the Wild West. The characters display frontier grit in spades and a vicious, poisonous breed of racism the likes of which I have never seen before. T...more I swear I will never think of Florida the same again. Gone is my impression of an overly air conditioned world of old people wearing Bermuda shorts and long black socks. This book was brilliant and terrifying and drenched in blood. It’s set in the “Ten Thousand Islands” of the Florida Everglades beginning in the late 1800s when it was as lawless as the Wild West. The characters display frontier grit in spades and a vicious, poisonous breed of racism the likes of which I have never seen before. The author absolutely nails his material; you can smell the swampy water, feel the mosquitoes, and see all the way to the souls of the characters.

According to the jacket, this book was originally published (against the will and intent of the author) as three separate books – Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man’s River, and Bone by Bone. After many years and extensive re-editing, the author succeeded in getting it republished according to his initial vision of the work. The results are pretty spectacular. I can see the first book working nicely as a stand-alone, but the combination of the three is what gives the book its unique texture.

Book One, the former Killing Mister Watson, was undeniably my favorite. It is told end-first, with the reader finding out in the first few pages that a Mr. Watson has been gunned down by his neighbors. The author then spends the rest of the book telling the events that led up to this through a dozen or so points of view. That is, through the eyes of just about every gender, race, class, and grudge in the Ten Thousand Islands, save that of E. J. Watson himself. In linear terms, the story deals with the gradual accumulation of evidence of Watson’s guilt – the killings, disappearances, and dark rumors that eventually turn his neighbors to fear and kill him. But the actual telling of the story is much more interesting; the characters doubt themselves and each other, their prejudices and allegiances lead them to ignore what they shouldn’t, and every person in the islands interprets Mr. Watson’s actions and supposed actions just a bit differently. It’s a fascinating story that is perfectly told.

I’m reserving a star from my rating due to Book Two, which skips forward to the 1920s and ‘30s and examines Watson’s son Lucius as he attempts to clear his father’s name. It has plenty of merit, but it’s slower and lacks the menacing immediacy of the first book. But while the atmosphere is lacking a bit, the examination of a son’s desire to believe the best of his father in the face of overwhelming popular opinion to the contrary is interesting.

The Third Book was also not quite up the standard of the first, but it was very good. The final book is reserved for the infamous Watson’s own point of view, from his violent childhood to his violent death. It is intriguing to see his perspective and to get an authorized version of the events of his life, although seeing things through his eyes did not always clear up matters of fault and guilt as much as one might expect. I think most people are sympathetic to their own stories, and Edgar Watson is no different. He wanted to be happy, he saw a fair amount of good in himself, and he saw himself as honestly regretful over much of what he directly or indirectly caused to happen around him. There are probably some readers who saw him as a man more sinned against than sinning – a victim of abuse with bad stars and an adolescent head injury that let his id permanently out to play. My own interpretation was that he was a textbook sociopath, with all the ironic charm and intelligence and horror the label implies.

This was an excellent book all around, and I would very much recommend it. It’ll knock your socks off.
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Jul 02, 2009 Melody rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shadow Country is actually three books rewritten and meant to be read together to get the whole story of Edgar J. Watson. He was a real plantation owner, one of the early settlers in the area now known as the Everglades. There are many rumors about his life and his death. This book is the fictionalized account of the myths and truths of the man and his family.

It’s a damn long book and sometimes I didn’t care if I got the truth. But that was mainly because I was ready to move on to something els...more Shadow Country is actually three books rewritten and meant to be read together to get the whole story of Edgar J. Watson. He was a real plantation owner, one of the early settlers in the area now known as the Everglades. There are many rumors about his life and his death. This book is the fictionalized account of the myths and truths of the man and his family.

It’s a damn long book and sometimes I didn’t care if I got the truth. But that was mainly because I was ready to move on to something else. I already knew how and when he was going to get killed because I had already read (although a long time ago) Killing Mister Watson.

The first part of the trilogy, Killing Mister Watson is his story told from many points of view. From his daughter, his neighbors, his relatives. It’s an account of what they knew or what they thought they knew about what E.J. Watson did or did not do, about who he was and who he killed; about his good qualities and about his bad. The second book tells how one of his sons sets out to find out the truth about his father. He seeks out some of these same eye witnesses to get a retelling of his father’s story with hopes of learning something new; something that will show that his father was a good man and not a killer.

Book III is Edgar’s story. He fills in details others left out. He confirms and denies. He admits and he confesses. He justifies and he excuses. He is just as dead at the end.

You get the story of the taming or raping of south Florida. You see the beautiful wildlife hunted and shot just for sport or to ironically satisfy America’s love of beauty. You see justification of the powerful “land owner” doing whatever he has to do to get people to do dangerous, hard, labor for little or no pay. You see politicians playing their games to advance themselves or someone they consider an equal or an asset to their climb. An epic, that’s what it is. Nothing is really answered. You just get a good hard look at his story and the story of this time in our American History. And at the end of each account Mister Watson still is full of bullets. (less)

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Jun 11, 2012 Janet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: award-winners, historical-fiction, relieved-to-finish

Webster's defines truth as a noun referring to 'the quality of being true, genuine, actual, or factual' - a static commodity in short supply in this bloated trilogy depicting the life, times and death of E.J. Watson. The first volume told from the vantage point of family, neighbors, legally emancipated but indentured slaves, lawmakers and others is by turns hearsay, storytelling, myth - all steeped in fear. Volume two has us pad along in the footsteps of his tortured son, Lucius as he chases the...more

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Feb 21, 2009 Karen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

3 books(2 stars, 2 stars, and 4 stars) rewritten into 1 long book. The 1st book sets up the tragic fiction character and is a tedious read with a lot of characters that are difficult to remember. The 2nd book is less tedious but also less entertaining. The 3rd book brings it all together; the fiction story that is used to bring in the history, and the total tragedy of the character, Florida, and the country as a whole. The story incorporates the sad, uneducated Scots and other poor whites that i...more

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Dec 20, 2008 William Ramsay rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shadow Country won the National Book award this year, but I don't think it should have. The book is a rewrite of three novels Matthiessen published about 30 years ago. He claims he dropped about 400 pages from the original, but in my mind 400 was not enough. The book could easily have been about half as long as it is (over 900 pages).

The story revolves around one E.J.Watson who was a planter in the Florida keys with a storied, violent past. Out of fear of him, his neighbors one day assassinate h...more

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Jan 23, 2009 Tim rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Shadow Country" is one of those books I describe as "nearly great." (For our purposes here, that would translate to 4.5 stars if the rating system allowed). I owned the first book in the original trilogy that this book distills/subtracts from/adds upon, but never read it. I suspect I'm not missing a lot, as good as this novel is.

Matthiessen comes at the story of turn-of-the-century southwest Florida legend Edgar Watson from all angles -- in Book I, first-person narratives that don't include Wat...more

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Jun 16, 2011 Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the fiction National Book Award winner for this year. Though daunting in size, this book is thoroughly enjoyable and readable. The setting is unique--backcountry Everglades farm communities around the turn of the 20th century. It's a long one (~800 pgs), and I just finished "book one" (of three). It's about the life and eventual murder (don't worry, that's not a spoiler) of a shady plantation owner/outlaw, E.J. Watson, except you never hear the story from his perspective, only from other...more

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Mar 01, 2009 Kathy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, reviewed

I really loved this book. I didn't know anything about the Watson legend before I started reading it, but it didn't matter. It's formatted as a trilogy so you hear mostly the same story from different points of view -- when I say it like that it sounds repetitive, but Matthiessen did a good job of not making it laborious. In fact, each of the three major parts gives you more information about the story you heard in the section before.

Edgar Watson, I guess true to what they say about his real lif...more

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Jan 21, 2009 Blake rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am usually not a fan of National Book Award winners. And after reading Marilynne Robinson's "Home," I didn't think anything could top it. But they got it right this year. Matthiessen's trilogy is a book that (if I know anything about myself) will haunt me for a long time. It is one of the ten best novels I've ever read, and (as most of you know) I don't take ranking's lightly.

Of the three novels, I am fondest of the first--formerly published as Killing Mister Watson. Matthiessen's vernacular i...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Peter Fortune rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-high

In southwest Florida, around Everglades City and the tiny Chokoloskee Island, the story is told of Mr. Watson, who arrived in the area in the late 1890s and died there in 1910. Watson was considered a bad man--in a frontier area without any good men. He settled at Chatham Bend, a small key, and started a successful sugar can plantation. Gathered around him were some really bad types, and the twonspeople became afraid of him. When dead body's began to show up at Chatham Bend, the story got around...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Laura rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow! What a book. This book is immense in size(literally) and scope! The book is a retelling and rewriting of three novels all independently published by the author. The story takes place in pioneer Florida at the beginning of the twentieth century. The planter Mr. EJ Watson is a gifted farmer and intelligent man... "who drives himself toward a violent end". His neighbors mostly admire him, his favorite son became obsessed with figuring the truth.

The truth is difficult to discern with stories o...more

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Nov 07, 2012 Cora rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: florida, historical-fiction, bookclub

Shadow Country is three books in one. Each book tells the same story, but from a different point of view. The story is historical fiction about E.J. Watson, a legendary sugar farmer in turn of the century Florida. The book takes place in a Florida that was as wild as the western frontier. E.J. Watson had a sugar plantation in the Ten Thousand Islands on the Western coast of Florida. Watson had a reputation for being a ruthless killer, most prominent was the rumor of "Watson Payday" where he was...more Shadow Country is three books in one. Each book tells the same story, but from a different point of view. The story is historical fiction about E.J. Watson, a legendary sugar farmer in turn of the century Florida. The book takes place in a Florida that was as wild as the western frontier. E.J. Watson had a sugar plantation in the Ten Thousand Islands on the Western coast of Florida. Watson had a reputation for being a ruthless killer, most prominent was the rumor of "Watson Payday" where he was said to kill his field hands at the end of harvest so he wouldn't have to pay them. The first book in the novel (which has been previously published as a stand alone novel called Killing Mister Watson) tells the story of Watson from the point of view of his neighbors who eventually gun down Watson and claim self defense (this is not a spoiler as it is revealed in the prologue). In this section the reader sees the myth of Watson growing, but you are not sure what is truth and what is purely rumor. The second book (previous published as a stand alone called Lost Man's River) follows Watson's son Lucious who eight years after his father was killed is trying to find out the truth about his father. In this book, Lucious and the reader uncover some answers, but much is still unclear. The third book is written in the voice of Watson, who if telling his own story. In this section, many of the questions remaining are answered, although as a reader I was not sure how much to trust what Watson was telling me.

I really enjoyed reading this novel. I learned a lot about Florida history and the everglades. The story talks about people making their living hunting plume birds and gators and how fast the populations were depleted so people had to find other ways to survive. I also found it interesting to explore how a man's life became a legend, even while he was still alive. It took awhile to get into the book because there were so many characters to keep straight in the first book, but once I got a feel for who was who I became wrapped up the mystery of perception and truth.(less)

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Oct 21, 2012 Holly rated it 5 of 5 stars

The story of Edgar J Watson, one of America's infamous outlaws, an entrepreneur who lived in the Florida Everglades around the turn of the century and left a trail of death from South Carolina to Arkansas to Florida. He was gunned down by a mob of his neighbors in 1910.

This book is a re-creation of Matthiessen's previous works "Killing Mister Watson," "Lost Man's River," and "Bone by Bone." The word "obsession" has been used to describe Matthiessen's preoccupation w/ the history of Edgar J Watso...more The story of Edgar J Watson, one of America's infamous outlaws, an entrepreneur who lived in the Florida Everglades around the turn of the century and left a trail of death from South Carolina to Arkansas to Florida. He was gunned down by a mob of his neighbors in 1910.

This book is a re-creation of Matthiessen's previous works "Killing Mister Watson," "Lost Man's River," and "Bone by Bone." The word "obsession" has been used to describe Matthiessen's preoccupation w/ the history of Edgar J Watson - his first notes date from 1978, and "The Shadow Country" was completed in 2008 - a span of 30 years. He argues that this is not historical fiction - that only the barest of outlines of fact can be found and he filled in all that was missing to make the story what it is today.

The story is told in three parts: first are a series of what seem to be interviews from 10 narrators about their interactions w/ Edgar Watson, second is told from the perspective of Lucius, Watson's son, who has a phd in history and tries to find the truth about his father and his death, and the third is told from Watson's perspective, starting w/ his childhood in S Carolina during the 1860s.

Epic, majestic, dark, this novel is more than a history lesson. Edgar is the personification of our American obsession w/ the outlaw. He was both a victim and a perpetrator of the ills of capitalism. He is a complex character, capable of great love and great ideas. He was charismatic, entergetic, handsome, charming, and very intelligent; the reader struggles to button hole him - he's neither fully bad nor good, and this is the result of excellent writing, excellent character development.

This was a time of gross pollution, racism, and the obliteration of the wilderness; Matthiessen details the massacre and almost complete annihilation of plume birds and aligators, to name a few. In the name of progress, anyone or anything that got in the way was eliminated - all for money, profit, advancement. Edgar is a product of that society - he kills for money, he kills two black men who are demanding better pay and working conditions. This all in a time when law was both corrupt and often non-existent, when justice was exacted at the hands of the citizens, and whoever had the most money and the right skin color could commit murder in broad daylight. This story will have enduring power because it reverberates in a hint or undercurrent for what we Americans do today - racism is still alive and well, and there are hundreds of examples of how we pillage both our own land and that of others so that we Americans can still consume - this especially obvious in time of recession, when the amount we consume is an indicator of the health of our nation, despite the cost of that consumption on land and people.(less)

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May 04, 2011 Caroline rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is based on the true story of a Florida planter and outlaw, E.J. Watson, who was murdered by his neighbours; it was originally a trilogy and Matthiessen reworked and condensed it to produce this version. It was entirely an accident that I ended up reading this whilst in Florida, given that it's set in the Florida back-country at the turn of the century. It really seemed to add to the atmosphere, being in and around the same places mentioned in the book, smelling the mangrove swamps and...more

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May 27, 2009 Dubin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Really interesting read, but I wish I had read it as three books instead of one collected book.

The gimmick of the book is that it essentially retells the same story three times, the life and death of real-life Florida sugar-baron E.J. Watson.

The first book tells the story from the perspective of Watson's neighbors. All unreliable, they sketch the outlines of his life and the events leading up to his death. Yet we never hear from the man himself.

The second book follows Watson's son as he tries t...more

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May 25, 2009 Bill rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a work of historical fiction about the life and death of an actual figure, E.J. Watson, who was killed by an angry mob in the Florida Everglades in October of 1910.

Epic in nature, the novel covers the time period of the reconstruction through the great depression. Readers will be made well acquainted with the horrid state of race relations during that period of time, the reconstruction, institutional small-town injustice (which led to institutionalized lynch mob "justice"), the history...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Al rated it 5 of 5 stars

Originally published as three separate books, Shadow Country is a one-volume reworking and combination of the three. This story of E. J. Watson, a turn-of-the-century Southwestern Florida entrepreneur, farmer and outlaw, has almost everything one could want in a book. Clearly, the Watson legend has been an obsession for Mr. Matthiessen, who worked on it, in various versions, for over thirty years. The result is a long (almost 900 pages) book; the three parts examine the life and death of Watson...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Leslie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, 21st-century-fiction, historical-fiction, favourites

The structure of this is very good. We start by looking at Watson from the outside, in a series of masterful fragments in the voices of those who knew him or had contact with him or heard about him; then we move a little closer, as his son Lucius spends his life in search of the truth about his father; finally, the whole story is narrated by Watson himself, so we move inside of him to experience the inner life of a man who has proved bafflingly hard to know from every other angle. At every point...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

I know this book won the National Book Award, and it's written by the highly respected Peter Matthiessen, who labored over its 892 pages for something like 30 years. I feel kind of sheepish only giving it three stars. But there they are. I liked this book, but I didn't love it, and taken as a whole, I thought it had its flaws. So three stars it is.

This book (as must always be explained for some reason, so I'm doing it too) began in Matthiessen's mind as one giant book, but ended up eventually be...more I know this book won the National Book Award, and it's written by the highly respected Peter Matthiessen, who labored over its 892 pages for something like 30 years. I feel kind of sheepish only giving it three stars. But there they are. I liked this book, but I didn't love it, and taken as a whole, I thought it had its flaws. So three stars it is.

This book (as must always be explained for some reason, so I'm doing it too) began in Matthiessen's mind as one giant book, but ended up eventually being published as three separate novels. To create Shadow Country, Matthiessen went back to his original idea, reworked a whole bunch of stuff, dropped about 400 pages of text (yikes!) and came up with this one award-winning tome.

At its most basic, this novel is based on the true story of a farmer/outlaw named E. J. Watson, who lived in Florida around the turn of the century, but was murdered by a mob (or posse, depending on who tells the story) of his neighbors in 1910. Much of the book concerns itself with fleshing out Watson, not as a historical figure but as a literary one. Who was he really? Which of the crimes that he was rumored to have committed did he actually perpetrate? And why, ultimately, did his friends and neighbors kill him?

Despite being now bound as one volume, this novel is still divided into three books, each with their own style and point of view. In the first book, the story is told through the voices of many of the story's characters (except for Watson himself). The end is given away first, to avoid any suspense that one might feel about the plot. If you don't like that, then definitely don't read this book, because this is not a book about plot. It's a book about place and character development, and nowhere is that more evident than in the first book, where each chapter is named for a character in the story, and told in the first person--kind of similar to Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. This way of telling the story seems very appropriate, especially as it was set in a rural community that still relies largely on oral tradition. It illustrates very well the way the facts of a historical event can change--through time, ignorance, or intention--into rumor, untruth, and eventually myth.

That said, I felt that there wasn't always enough distinction between the voices, so that if I hadn't have had the character's name as the title for each chapter, I would have had difficulty establishing who was speaking. I think Matthiessen casts his net too wide in this book. Many, many characters chime in in the telling (I didn't count them, but it had to have been at least 20), so that while I could vaguely (and with much concentration) keep straight the basic biographical facts of each person, I wasn't able to isolate the precise voice or personality of many of them. This was made even more difficult by the fact that Mattiessen sometimes couldn't keep himself from going off on poetically descriptive tangents (for which he is well known), despite the fact that the observation didn't always seem to fit with the voice of the character saying it. Truly, I want to believe that every person, no matter how uneducated or isolated they are, has a poet lurking within them, but in this book all the poetic bits ended up sounding strangely the same.

In the second book, the story is told from the point of view of Lucius, one of Watson's sons. Unable to move on from his father's apparent murder, Lucius becomes a history professor and sets out--despite the obvious conflicts of interest--to write the definitive and unbiased biography of his father. I wanted very much to sympathize with Lucius, who is a sensitive soul, an observer, and very much the "writer" character in this book. But somehow I just kept not quite believing in him. He's passive to the point of being almost inept. Despite having a PhD and one published history book under his belt, he frequently goes into interview situations in which he hardly asks a single question, and certainly not any of the questions that it seems he should be asking. He seems private and thoughtful, yet naively signs his name to important legal documents with hardly a hesitation.

Then there's the character of Arbie Collins, a supposed distant cousin, who drops into the story and almost immediately begins running around with Lucius as some kind of drunken, cynical sidekick. While this new character introduction helps move the plot along--Cousin Arbie brings with him some new research that helps fill significant holes in Lucius' story--it seems too forced (not to mention unbelievable to me that Lucius would even take up with this lowlife--again, without a hesitation).

This book has its satisfactions. Some characters end up happier than you think they ought to, given their life circumstances. Some mysteries are cleared up, and for the better. But ultimately, I felt like Matthiessen dealt too tenderly with Lucius, maybe out of some kind of sympathy for him, and introduced too many useful characters, illuminating coincidences, and near escapes for the story to seem realistic.

OK, so now for the confession. Assuming you're still reading (and I don't blame you if you're not--the irony would be apt!) I've been stringing you along as if I'm going to tell you about all three books. In truth, I didn't read the third one. After spending 490 pages with Watson and the many characters of this sparsely inhabited part of Florida, I ran out of steam for the remaining 400. But it's not from just a lack of resolve. It's that I really liked the juxtaposition of the first two books--one a telling of the story through oral tradition, the other through scholarly research and family ties--and the ways in which they are incomplete. The third book, I gather, is the story of E. J. Watson's life from his own point of view. I'm sure it will clear up a lot of remaining questions about what he did or didn't do, and why. But actually, I like the mystery. I like knowing some of what we can know, and then having to infer things--as we do in real life--about what happened and why.

There were some really great things that happened with this book. Insightful observations about story, community, race, responsibility, truth. Rich, seething, sometimes ruthless descriptions of the swamps and tidal marshes of the southwest coast of Florida. Lovely symmetries between characters that strengthened the whole. Maybe the book's faults lie in being too ambitious. In any case, I liked it, but I definitely didn't love it.(less)

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Jul 12, 2011 Nelly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: best-books-of-all-time

This book is a masterpiece, but don't trust this ordinary reader. Just look at the book jacket and read the quotes from such luminaries as Oates, Bellow, and Dillard. They are in awe of this book and so am I. You'd think that a book which begins with the story's climax--the murder of its protagonist--wouldn't be able to keep you interested for nearly 900 pages. In fact, I lugged this book around everywhere and read it whenever I had a moment to spare. I did not want it to end.

The author's note...more

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Nov 19, 2009 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

First let me say that this is an extraordinary book. The writing is masterful. The characters are colorful and the sense of who they are is right on. This book is a collection of first person vignettes about the legend of a person named E.J. Watson who settled along the southern gulf coast of Florida around the turn of the 20th century to become a wealthy planter. Depending on who's telling the story, he was either a saint who helped his neighbors or the devil who was ruthless and who pretty muc...more

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Jan 08, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Critics described the three stand-alone Watson novels as magnificent epics, and Shadow Country, a seamless weaving and slimming down of these works, as a masterpiece. As in all his writing, Matthiessen offers a beautiful homage to place—the raw, untamed Everglades of the late 19th century—while trying to understand the costs that accompanied the conquering of the frontier. All the stand-alone sections have their strengths as they explore the motivations behind Watson’s death. Despite its heft, m...more

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Nov 09, 2009 Martin rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm just a bit up and down on this one, ending to the 'up' of middle.

The author's approach is to describe one fictonal EJ Watson's life from several perspecties, essentially written in three sections. They were originally three seperate books, and combined/sshirtened into this form. The first section weaves in and out of several different people who describe key events in Watson's life. The second section is written in his 'favorite' son's voice, the son who desperately tried to understand what...more I'm just a bit up and down on this one, ending to the 'up' of middle.

The author's approach is to describe one fictonal EJ Watson's life from several perspecties, essentially written in three sections. They were originally three seperate books, and combined/sshirtened into this form. The first section weaves in and out of several different people who describe key events in Watson's life. The second section is written in his 'favorite' son's voice, the son who desperately tried to understand what really happened in his father's sad life. And finally, the third section is AJ Watson's life in his own words. The 'three perspectives' approach is both engaging and daunting at the same time.

Engagement is derived from author Matthiessen's mastery of that Floridian sociology, and convincing delivery of late-1800's/early-1900's nuanced behavior within the ragtag domains of far-away and hostile environs ... all from many many perspectives. The daunting part, to me, is simply the grand count of unique individuals. This is a book of not only many words, but many people, places and times. I think that a better reader than me would follow it all more easily, and, Matthiessen's technique is one of repitition: each section and each perspective will recall one event from other sections, so it does start to come together even if you are challenged to begin. There is a family tree and a map on the inside cover of my edition, which was referenced from time to time.

My fascination with the book is largely this sociological aspect and what I believe to be the author's clear and accurate depiction of that time, that place. Mattiessen describes unbearable heat and humidity and mosquitoes of Southern Florida with compelling narrative. If the paragraph describes hot, humid conditions with bugs that torture, then I almost guarantee you will feel hot and bothered in your reading chair. And the environmental accuracies seem to leak over to the human ones too. That dynamic of post-civil war post-slavery attitudes towards blacks, or the simple logic of the criminal, or clan alliances, or love in the face of evil mates are all described quite effectively. None of us were living in 1897, but the author does a good job of convincing us that he knows what that was like, exactly.

As interesting as these folks seem to be, as we get to know them intimately , it starts to wear. I'm not sure how many times I want to read about different ways of being drunk all the time and living life in a complete stupor. All of the Floridian males of 1900 apparently suffered from continuous intoxication followed by some type of shoot-off having unintended victims. And lots of them. Mr. Watson had a sorry life, much of it caused by his own actions, and it involed may protracted adventures with liquor, women, guns and law of the time.

Readers have different levels of tolerance toward consuming a sorry story. I'll take my sorrow in rather short doses. Eight hundered pages may be a bit more than what my doctor perscribed, but I was still pleased that I visited this work.(less)

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Jan 02, 2010 Tony rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: u-s-lit, top-10-2010, favorites

Wow.

Shadow Country is a searing dissection of turn of the century (circa 1880-1910) Everglades culture, history and character. The focal character is E.J. Watson, sugar cane planter, innovator, patriarch, murderer, and victim.

The novel is comprised of three 'books', all telling the story of the death of Watson from separate points of view: first, various people who witnessed and assessed the events at the time; second, one of Watson's sons, trying (maybe) to reconstruct Watson's life and crimes...more Wow.

Shadow Country is a searing dissection of turn of the century (circa 1880-1910) Everglades culture, history and character. The focal character is E.J. Watson, sugar cane planter, innovator, patriarch, murderer, and victim.

The novel is comprised of three 'books', all telling the story of the death of Watson from separate points of view: first, various people who witnessed and assessed the events at the time; second, one of Watson's sons, trying (maybe) to reconstruct Watson's life and crimes; and third, Watson himself. Matthiessen originally wrote this as three separate novels at the insistence of his publisher. (I never read the originals). Shadow Country combines them, with some reworking, and, like the melding of the five 'books' in 2666, the result is breathtaking. You'd think that telling the same story three times in a 900-page book would be annoying, a waste of time. However, it is precisely the three distinct views which give this novel its greatness.

Matthiessen confronts racism head-on and doesn't water it down with notions of traditional Southern justifications. He writes that there is "death among us" and shovels plenty of it. E.J. Watson is a full participant. Yet, Matthiessen teaches that the human mind and soul are complex, that judgements and actions can be situational, except, of course, when they are not. In one man, Watson, we see all of it: the history, family, lust, brutality, tenderness and many, many misunderstandings.

For all of the horror in this book, there is also much humor thanks to exceptional dialogue which Matthiessen paints in a dialect that he clearly captured.

My only criticism is that Matthiessen gratuitously throws in some brief environmental rant, gratuitous because it's out of place from the storyline. It's just a sentence or two, and nowhere near as distracting as Hugo's 100 page historical tangent in Les Miserables. Perhaps I shouldn't even have mentioned it.

I don't know if this is The Great American Novel but it certainly is a great American novel. It even has some baseball in it, Mr. Roth.(less)

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Sep 29, 2012 WM Rine rated it 5 of 5 stars

The story of the killing of "Bloody" Watson in remote South Florida in the early 20th century, told from three perspectives, stands as the crowning monument in what was already a distinguished career. The three parts were originally released as separate books and they didn't stand all that well on their own. Combined, they were edited down somewhat to the present volume, and though they involve retellings (the first by Watson's neighbors, the second an attempt to piece his story together by a su...more

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Jun 06, 2010 Rachelle Urist rated it 4 of 5 stars

A long (almost 800 pages) but brilliant exploration of Bloody Watson, a legendary outlaw in the Florida Everglades at the turn of the 20th century. The book is divided into 3 parts, and the story is told from many points of view. Book one has many points of view - various family members, friends, neighbors. Book two is told from the favorite son's pov. Book three is told from the pov of Watson himself. He was a man more sinned against than sinning, and his story expands our knowledge of American...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Joseph Dunn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: national-book-award, literature

Listen, I have great respect for the time and effort Matthiessen put into this novel. It is his life's work. This came from the depths of his soul, and the result is nothing short than epic. The only reason I rate this so low is that I personally found the story to be too boring. I'm sorry, I really tried to stay captivated throughout the whole novel, but it lost my interest. The entire story revolves around one man, E.J. Watson, set against the backdrop of post-Civil War/reconstruction America,...more

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Nov 04, 2012 Ben Thurley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shadow Country is a brutal, intricately characterised and stunningly rendered novel set in Florida’s Everglades at the turn of the 20th Century. It’s a reworking of Matthieson’s Mister Watson trilogy, and – for a novel that starts with its ending (almost) fully revealed – a totally gripping story.

Matthiessen's descriptions of landscape are masterful. He weaves a web of rumour and violence around the figure of Edgar J Watson, Florida sugar plantation owner and outlaw, through multiple and overlap...more

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About Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen was born in New York City in 1927 and had already begun his writing career by the time he graduated from Yale University in 1950. The following year, he was a founder of The Paris Review. Besides At Play in the Fields of the Lord, which was nominated for the National Book Award, he has published six other works of fiction, including Far Tortuga and Raditzer. Mr. Matthiessen's...more

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“This world is painted on a wild dark metal” — 4 people liked it

“From the first day I met his daughter, all I could think about was snuffling up under that sweet dimity like some bad old bear, just crawling up into that honeycomb, nose twitching, and never come out of there till early spring. Think that’s disgusting? Dammit, I do, too, but that’s the way male animals are made. Those peculiar delights were created to entrap us, and anybody who disapproves can take it up with God.

In their wondrous capacity of knowing the Lord’s mind, churchly folks will tell you that He would purely hate to hear such dirty talk. My idea is, He wouldn’t mind it half so much as they would have us think, because even according to their own queer creed, we are God’s handiwork, created in His image, lust, piss, shit, and all. Without that magnificent Almighty lust that we mere mortals dare to call a sin, there wouldn’t be any more mortals, and God’s grand design for the human race, if He exists and if He ever had one, would turn to dust, and dust unto dust, forever and amen. Other creatures would step up and take over, realizing that man was too weak and foolish to properly reproduce himself. I nominate hogs to inherit the Earth, because hogs love to eat any old damned thing God sets in front of them, and they’re ever so grateful for God’s green earth even when it’s all rain and mud, and they just plain adore to feed and fuck and frolic and fulfill God’s holy plan. For all we know, it’s hogs which are created in God’s image, who’s to say?” — 3 people liked it

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