Rating: 
Summary: History Lessons
Review: A robust and ambitious novel, The Huntsman offers its readers more than just a gripping and carefully crafted plot about a murdered debutante whose lily-white body washes up on the banks of the Missouri River. The "who done it?" question is quickly eclipsed by far more substantial, and less easily answered, questions about history (both personal and political), blame, culpability, and restitution. One of the suspects in Clarissa Sayers's murder is Booker Short, a young black man who has arrived in Kansas City seeking Mercury Chapman, the aristocratic white man who commanded the regiment of black soldiers in which Booker's grandfather served during World War II. The despotic Isaac Bentham has schooled his grandson in a family mythology that both demonizes Chapman and places him in Bentham's debt. Motivated by an undefinable sense of guilt as well as his own altruistic impulses, Chapman offers the destitute Booker a caretaker's job at his hunting club outside of town. It is there that Booker meets and consummates his relationship with Clarissa, the daughter of another club member, but the more significant relationship develops between Booker and Mercury. Separated by race, class, and generation, these two men grapple with the slipperiness of historical "truth" and explore the consequences of compensatory gestures as they attempt to understand the ways in which their lives are intertwined. In the hands of a less gifted writer, such themes might result in a pedantic narrative, too weighty to be truly engaging. But Terrell is able to captivate his readers with his finely wrought descriptions of the midwestern landscape and his rich characterizations of not only Mercury and Booker, but also numerous peripheral characters, many of whom, one hopes, will turn up in Terrell's future novels about Kansas City.
Ultimately, this book suggests to me that adopting a forensic or juridical stance toward race and class relations--simply trying to get to the bottom of who did what to whom and what punishment should be meted out--will be a fruitless pursuit. The relationships between victims and oppressors, blacks and whites, rich and poor are too complex and dynamic. What is needed are difficult, uncomfortable conversations about the different ways in which we all view the past and how we might work together to build a better future. A brave novel, The Huntsman is likely to produce such evocative and important discussions.
Rating:
Summary: History Lessons
Review: A robust and ambitious novel, The Huntsman offers its readers more than just a gripping and carefully crafted plot about a murdered debutante whose lily-white body washes up on the banks of the Missouri River. The "who done it?" question is quickly eclipsed by far more substantial, and less easily answered, questions about history (both personal and political), blame, culpability, and restitution. One of the suspects in Clarissa Sayers's murder is Booker Short, a young black man who has arrived in Kansas City seeking Mercury Chapman, the aristocratic white man who commanded the regiment of black soldiers in which Booker's grandfather served during World War II. The despotic Isaac Bentham has schooled his grandson in a family mythology that both demonizes Chapman and places him in Bentham's debt. Motivated by an undefinable sense of guilt as well as his own altruistic impulses, Chapman offers the destitute Booker a caretaker's job at his hunting club outside of town. It is there that Booker meets and consummates his relationship with Clarissa, the daughter of another club member, but the more significant relationship develops between Booker and Mercury. Separated by race, class, and generation, these two men grapple with the slipperiness of historical "truth" and explore the consequences of compensatory gestures as they attempt to understand the ways in which their lives are intertwined. In the hands of a less gifted writer, such themes might result in a pedantic narrative, too weighty to be truly engaging. But Terrell is able to captivate his readers with his finely wrought descriptions of the midwestern landscape and his rich characterizations of not only Mercury and Booker, but also numerous peripheral characters, many of whom, one hopes, will turn up in Terrell's future novels about Kansas City.
Ultimately, this book suggests to me that adopting a forensic or juridical stance toward race and class relations--simply trying to get to the bottom of who did what to whom and what punishment should be meted out--will be a fruitless pursuit. The relationships between victims and oppressors, blacks and whites, rich and poor are too complex and dynamic. What is needed are difficult, uncomfortable conversations about the different ways in which we all view the past and how we might work together to build a better future. A brave novel, The Huntsman is likely to produce such evocative and important discussions.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been better
Review: Before writing this review, out of curiosity I read all the posted reviews and noted with interest that they'd all been written by men. Perhaps that's why they rated this book so highly. Certainly, it was a starred advance advance review in Publishers Weekly that prompted me to buy the book in the first place. I cannot, however, heap lavish praise on this book because I found it flawed in many ways.I don't know why so many men "discover" incest as a theme and choose to use it as the central issue in their books when their comprehension of the crime and its effects appears to be grievously narrow and limited. But yet again we have in The Huntsman an incest theme that skirts close to some truths but never scores a direct bull's-eye. There is a lack of genuine insight into Clarissa Sayers's mindset as a victim/participant in a sexual relationship with her father, and her motivation is never clearly defined. As well, she's made to seem a willing partner in the incest and that just doesn't ring true at all. The author does a far better job of defining Booker Short, the young black man who is seeking whatever form of compensation, be it moral or financial, for an historical wrong he's been led to believe was committed by Mercury Chapman--the elderly man at the heart of this story who, to my mind, is the best-developed, most sympathetic character in the book. Of all the characters who appear, Mercury is the moral core, the one true soul in a sea of so many who range from slightly so, to entirely corrupt. The beginning of the book is slow and ungainly, even confusing. When the narrative shifts its focus to Booker, suddenly there is insight and motion and the plot begins to flow. But with the constant shifts in focus, the book loses its drive; as well, it is overladen with ponderous, even arcane, adjectives that merely slow things down. Also the names of many of the characters (perhaps intended to be Dickensian in their reflection back upon the people who bear these ill-contrived names) is at times silly. There's Batson Putz, Sheriff Wade Crapple, and an elderly woman named Mrs. Snifter in the country club's bar. Buried beneath the heavy overusage of adjectives and shifting focus and foolish names are the strands of some profound truths--most especially how the repeated telling of what Booker's grandfather relates as a war-time travesty of justice drives Booker to seek out old Mercury Chapman in the first place, seeking some form of delayed recompense. The revelation that what Booker has been told is at a considerable remove from the truth is a long time coming but very powerful, in a book that is, essentially, about lies and deceit and social inequities. And this could have been a better, stronger book had the author resisted the lure of the thesaurus and delivered his narrative in simpler, more direct terms. Terrell is a talented writer, and I will buy his next book in the hope that he will have worked past the excesses and misconceptions that mar this work.
Rating:
Summary: Skip those long-winded reviews...
Review: Bottom line: Intelligent man's "whodunnit". Great story. Even better characters. Buy the book. Support the arts.
Rating:
Summary: Very good book
Review: Great story and well written. It brought back memories of Kansas City and the Midwest.
Rating:
Summary: The Huntsman
Review: I enjoyed this tale of good ole' boys, race issues, and scandal along with the lyrical discriptions of town, country and the river. It doesn't just rain, it pours, the sun doesn't just shine, it sizzles, as does every character! May I suggest, don't read too many finely detailed reviews? It will surely take some of the snap out of the crackle!
Rating:
Summary: Sex, Betrayal and A Whole Lot More In America's Heartland
Review: On my recent vacation I read two books - Moby Dick, by Herman Melville and The Huntsman, by Whitney Terrell. I don't intend to draw any parallels between these two other than the fact that they are both extraordinary novels written by great American authors. I put down Moby Dick wondering when I would ever engage in such a fantastic cerebral journey again. To my great happiness, the next day I entered the The Huntsman, a wonderful tale replete with Mr. Terrell's marvelous and elucidating prose. Without revealing the plot, as this is a riveting and suspenseful thriller, let me just say that The Huntsman is a murder mystery centered in America's heartland. Through the vehicle of his well told story, Mr. Terrell engulfs the reader with a thoughtful discussion of racial issues surrounding Kansas City. I would both urge the reader to run out and buy this book, and also to take time while reading it, as The Huntsman is definitely a treasure to be cherished, not consumed. The Huntsman is such a pleasure to read that I would recommend it to anyone. Prepare yourself for greatness.
Rating:
Summary: A Kansas City royal
Review: Terrell's novel is one of those rare reads that is both contemporary yet carries an air of timelessness. Thanks to a plot fueld by issues of race, war and class, The Huntsman draws the reader into a tense drama that in some ways is unique to its Kansas City setting... in other ways, sadly plausible decades ago, or in other American cities. Even more compelling than the plot, however, are the novel's well spun characters. These are figures that will stay with readers well after they put down the book. At times the characters may seem almost overdrawn, like the fiery 70something Mercury Chapman, who leaps fences and dishes out barbs with youthful vigor. Or the many smaller figures who appear only briefly, invariably leaving a passionate stamp on the action.
But for me, the color of the characters is what made the novel so memorable. And with both character and setting, Terrell writes with an eye for detail and flash for metaphor that often awes the reader. Amazing vocabulary too -- I wish this guy had helped prepare me for the SATs.... But don't spend too much time reading reviews, read the book!
Rating:
Summary: A Kansas City royal
Review: Terrell's novel is one of those rare reads that is both contemporary yet carries an air of timelessness. Thanks to a plot fueld by issues of race, war and class, The Huntsman draws the reader into a tense drama that in some ways is unique to its Kansas City setting... in other ways, sadly plausible decades ago, or in other American cities. Even more compelling than the plot, however, are the novel's well spun characters. These are figures that will stay with readers well after they put down the book. At times the characters may seem almost overdrawn, like the fiery 70something Mercury Chapman, who leaps fences and dishes out barbs with youthful vigor. Or the many smaller figures who appear only briefly, invariably leaving a passionate stamp on the action.
But for me, the color of the characters is what made the novel so memorable. And with both character and setting, Terrell writes with an eye for detail and flash for metaphor that often awes the reader. Amazing vocabulary too -- I wish this guy had helped prepare me for the SATs.... But don't spend too much time reading reviews, read the book!
Rating:
Summary: Relationship Divide
Review: Terrell's novel of racial relations in Kansas City involves us in a convoluted tale going back to the big war, World War II. After this war, most cities and states in the USA took some steps toward improving racial respect and harmony. Fighting along side members of different races somehow showed American soldiers that racial justice could be achieved. But not in Kansas City. Not in the South. Many Missourians fought on the side of the South in the Civil War and racial prejudices evidently died hard. Terrell's novel focuses on one moment in the war which haunted his characters years later in contemporary Kansas City. But the clarity of this supposed racial incident, described by Terrell, involving a court martial and hanging of a black soldier was left quite murky. Who actually had committed the rape in France? The reader never finds out concretely. And without concrete prejudice by the white commander in France, what we find in Terrell's novel is a shared guilt for the blacks and whites involved. However, when this tale of the court-martial returns to Kansas City, the uncertainty surrounding the hanging is fed by distrust, long-simmering inequities, fear of miscegenation, and a propensity for incest. So, is Terrell's book an indictment of Kansas City's racism or is it a circumlocitious tale of warped sexual indiscretion and betrayal? It's both, and Terrell's writing style somehow mimics the attitude of the elite women of the city who ignore both the incest and the inter-racial sex resolutely until those evils, hopefully, just go away. Terrell's attitude toward miscegenation can be found in his epilogue, maybe as his way of showing his own solution to the racial divisions and desegregation in Kansas City. "Finish what you start," Terrell seems to urge.
by Larry Rochelle, author of DEATH & DEVOTION, BOURBON & BLISS, TRACETRACKS and DANCE WITH THE PONY.
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