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About
In this panoramic tale of Manifest Destiny, Stephen Moran comes of age with the young country that he crosses on the Union Pacific, just as the railroad unites the continent. Propelled westward from his Brooklyn neighborhood and the killing fields of the Civil War to the Battle of Little Big Horn, he befriends Walt Whitman, becomes a bugler on President Lincoln's funeral train, apprentices with frontier photographer William Henry Jackson, and stalks General George Custer. When he comes face-to-face with Crazy Horse, his life will be spared but his dreams haunted for the rest of his days.By turns elegiac and comic, American Meteor is a novel of adventure, ideas, and mourning, a unique vision of America's fabulous and murderous history.
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Reviews
"The crafty Moran is a perfect everyman: his naïve, directionless unrest gradually cleaves from the irresponsible aggression of Manifest Destiny, for which Custer becomes a figurehead, and focuses into something far more wise, as readers witness. Likewise, Moran's tall tale is a perfect fit for Lock's storytelling: this feels like a campfire tale, an old-fashioned yarn full of rich historical deta
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Rather like Thomas Berger's Little Big Man…It's a lot to pack into a short novel, but Lock manages it with rueful grace…He writes beautifully, with many subtle, complex insights."
Booklist
"A young Civil War veteran ventures west, encountering violence and moments of revelation on his way…This novel memorably encompasses grand themes and notions of transcendence without ever losing sight of the grit and moral horrors present in the period."
Kirkus Reviews