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Shadow Country

Peter Matthiessen

Discussion: Door Stops

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Door Stops

A Suitable Boy - Parts 4-6 (Week 2: Jan 10-16)
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last updated Feb 03, 2017 06:30PM

A Suitable Boy, Parts 1-3 (Week One: Jan 1-9)
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last updated Feb 02, 2017 01:01PM

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What Members Thought

Feb 13, 2012 Christopher rated it it was amazing

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

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

24 likes · Like · see review

Jan 09, 2016 El rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-centurylit, big-effing-books

E. Watson, The Decemberists

My copy of this book is 892 pages, and I understand the original manuscript was like 1300 pages. And then the Decembrists basically sum up Matthiessen's story in less than four minutes.

Just sayin.

This very large book is actually comprised of three separate novels (Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone), but each of the novels basically tell the same story from someone else's perspective. This is actually pretty brilliant because you don't actually f E. Watson, The Decemberists

My copy of this book is 892 pages, and I understand the original manuscript was like 1300 pages. And then the Decembrists basically sum up Matthiessen's story in less than four minutes.

Just sayin.

This very large book is actually comprised of three separate novels (Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone), but each of the novels basically tell the same story from someone else's perspective. This is actually pretty brilliant because you don't actually feel like you're reading the same story three different times, it's just that well done.

The story itself is about E.J. Watson, a near mythical outlaw who is best known (in my mind, anyway) for allegedly killing another outlaw, Belle Starr. I first read about Belle Starr in a book by someone I used to know when I was an intern for his literary magazine a hundred years ago - Belle Starr. The story is interesting to me, mostly because I have a fascination for outlaws, especially if there are mysteries surrounding them. And then my beloved Gene Tierney played Starr one time in a movie, so that pretty much solidifies it for me.

In any case, it's popularly believed that Watson shot her in the back. Afterwards, Watson moved back to Florida where he probably killed some more people, and eventually his own peers turned on him because that's what a jury of peers does.

This is one solid collection. It's a bit bloated; Matthiessen can bloviate at times. I found it hard to pick this back up after putting it down for a small break. But it's one solid book, it really is. The different perspectives are so different from one another so that it reads like a true account, yet similar enough to not feel like separate books. Matthiessen is genius at telling a cohesive story with a variety of voices, exceptional attention to detail, covering a vast period of time. As far as I know the story is historically accurate, and as far as I'm concerned, Watson did kill Starr. Yes, Matthiessen convinced me. Find me another, more convincing argument, and I'd be happy to check it out.

But what's really brilliant about this account is that no matter what Watson did (or didn't do), Matthiessen makes him a fascinating character. He's not all good or all bad, because no one ever is. That's about the most realistic part of this book, really, the most convincing. ...more

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Jul 12, 2025 Irene rated it liked it

In 1910, in a part of southern Florida newly inhabited by whites, a man was killed by his neighbors. Was this vigilante justice, mob violence, self defense? In three sections, this novel looks at this man’s life from different perspectives: his neighbors, his son, and his own voice. Any one of these sections would have made a decent novel. But this extremely long book became so repetitive it could not hold my attention. by

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May 21, 2015 Dawn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, historical-fiction, series-finished

This book really feels like an old west story of murder and desperado's. So much so that at times it felt kind of odd that it was set in Florida, as I don't ever think of it as a wild west type place (really, I think of it as the home of Disney World). The author has managed to make it the kind of book you just get immersed in and that you want to know what happened, even though you know what happens.

I liked that all three sections of the story are told from different perspectives. The first par ...more

1 like · Like · see review