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Title: The Gates of the Alamo by Stephen Harrigan ISBN: 0-14-100002-3 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.39 (83 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: "A Work of historical fiction which reads like a thriller"
Comment: After publishing two wonderful, critically acclaimed novels in the '80s ("Aransas" and "Jacob's Well"), Stephen Harrigan seemed to drop off of the literary map. But his time was well spent, writing books of essays ("Commanche Night") and teleplays ("The Last of His Tribe," "Cleopatra") while researching his latest and third novel, "At the Gates of the Alamo," a work of historical fiction which reads like thriller and will have thousands of Americans glued to their seats as they reevaluate that legendary event in our history. Harrigan frames his story with a 1911 parade in San Antonio, as former Mayor Terrell Mott, the last surviving "hero" of the Alamo, takes a place of honor in the procession. Terrell's recollections of that time lead into the main story, featuring Terrell his mother Mary, and a botanist named Ed McGowan as protagonists. Beginning in the months before the citizens of Texas begin their fight for independence, Harrigan's narrative sets the stage for the coming siege with descriptions of violence that were almost commonplace during the time. An attack by Karankawa Indians is rendered in prose that mixes matter-of-fact detail with nearly poetic description: "He raised his war club, and in a strange suspension of time she studied him as if he were a subject sitting for a portrait: the shell gorget at his beautiful neck, the blue circles tattooed over his cheekbones, the rattlesnake rattles whirring at the end of his braid." After meeting up briefly with Mary Mott and her son Terrell (not to mention Jim Bowie) along the Texas coast, McGowan heads to Mexico City in order to secure more money to complete his _Flora Texana_, a journal identifying the various species of plants and flowers throughout Mexico. At the same time, Bowie and his followers head north in order to join brief skirmishes against the Mexican Army (Steven Austin, the founder of the independence movement, has been jailed in Mexico City). McGowan's journey brings him full circle, just in time to inadvertently get involved with the defenders of the Alamo - among them, Terrell Mott. Although the story of the Alamo is a familiar one, Harrigan lends it new importance by including recently discovered facts in his narrative, such as Crockett's leaving the Alamo during the siege to enlist more defenders. What's more, historical figures are presented in a realistic light: Jim Bowie comes off as a schemer always in search of a quick fortune; Col. Travis is brash and full of bravado; former congressman David Crockett can't seem to shake the habit of politicking; and Sam Houston is a scheming, devious man of questionable fortitude. Mary Mott's observations of Houston, after the Alamo, are telling: "In order to help the 'forted up' men in the Alamo, Houston would have had to abandon his own plans and subvert his own ambition, and men such as he did not do such things, no matter the cost in lives." Harrigan intermingles his fictional characters with the historical creating a work of seamless beauty. The Mexican characters - like Sgt. Blas Montoya, or Lt. Telesforo Villasenor - are handled with the same amount of care, so that when the battle comes the reader is equally moved by deaths on both sides. And the ongoing (on and off) relationship between Mary Mott and Ed McGowan never slides into maudlin territory. Great historical novels should present their revelations about the past within the context of a story that is both riveting and believable. Harrigan's "At the Gates of the Alamo" does all that and more. (copyright 2000, DTS/St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Gates of the Alamo
Comment: A mostly excellent, obviously well-researched historical novel, though it gets off to a somewhat slow start.The book's centerpiece, the battle of the Alamo, is -- once you finally get to it -- extremely effective and compelling. Because of Harrigan's approach to laying the historical background and developing his fictional characters, the novel does get off to a rather slow start. I did have a couple of my personal quibbles. First, I'd hoped and expected -- largely because of the book's sheer length -- for a bit more of an epic look at the whole Texas Revolution. Instead, the battle of Gonzales barely gets mentioned, the first siege of San Antonio happens offstage and the reader only encounters the aftermath -- albeit very effectively presented -- of Goliad. (The battle of San Jacinto is also given fairly brisk treatment, but that's not wholly inappropriate, given that it was a quite brief battle.) I don't think this should deter anyone from reading the book;I mention it mainly because knowing this in advance might head off any disappointment with the novel's scope. My second quibble is that I really felt Harrigan was much too negative in his depiction of one of it's nonfictional characters: Sam Houston. I think Houston was a smarter and braver man than depicted in this book (though I admit it probably gets his degree of personal vanity about right).
Rating: 5
Summary: Thoroughly Enjoyable
Comment: Thorughly enjoyable.
Hated to put the book down. The characters are interesting and well developed. Shows the reality of frontier life in Texas. Hope the author continues with many more books of this kind.
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Title: The Borderland : A Novel of Texas by Edwin Shrake ISBN: 0786884932 Publisher: Hyperion Pub. Date: 25 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Three Roads to the Alamo : The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis by William C. Davis ISBN: 0060930942 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Alamo Traces: New Evidence and New Conclusions by Thomas Ricks Lindley ISBN: 1556229836 Publisher: Taylor Trade Publishing Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Alamo by Frank Thompson ISBN: 1571458409 Publisher: Thunder Bay Press (CA) Pub. Date: 01 November, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.98 |
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Title: A Time to Stand by Walter Lord ISBN: 0803279027 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1978 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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