Rating: 
Summary: Many Levels, Many Reasons
Review: Pretty much all the reviewers so far have loved this book. There's just one guy who dissented, but I guess there's always gonna be one that doesn't catch on. For my part, I'd like to join in the chorus of enthusiasm for this novel. It works, and it works on many levels. At the simplest level it's an adventure story. Woven into that is a coming of age tale. Layered on that is a dialogue between good and evil, between the best and worst in men's natures. Add the back and forth between the life of homesteaders and that of cowboys, two dual and sometimes dueling aspects of the American frontier experience. There's a young black man discovering the natural world and relating to it in a way I've never seen in African-American literature. There's the turmoil of a mother watching her young sons become men, for better and worse. There's the anguish of a man who's family has died tragically. There's the strange legacy of slavery as manifest through two characters who don't even understand how they fit into that tragedy.All this and more can be found in this exceptional novel. I guess not everyone will engage with it so completely, but if any of these themes sound interesting to you I encourage you to delve into this book. It's all there, and an attentive reader will be well rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: Worhty of 5 stars or more
Review: Rarely do I read a book in one sitting, but I felt I had no choice in this one. I wish more books that I picked up held my interest, my imagination, and my heart as well as this one has. The main character, Gabriels, tells us a story of the American West in a unique manner far different than the "typical Western" we know. I highly recommend this book to those who are tired of cliches and formulas. I'm glad I found this little treasure.
Rating:
Summary: Finally. Talent!
Review: The characters a full-bodied and mature. The story is heart-breaking and real to the core. One sympathizes with the protagonists and wishes the antagonists straight to hell. Now that is what I call a good novel. Durham has done a fabulous job...
Rating:
Summary: The prodigal son returns
Review: The prodigal son always comes home. Iin life, in parable and in literature. And he has returned once more in "Gabriel's Story," a haunting debut by David Anthony Durham. In this incarnation, the wayward youth is a 15-year-old African-American boy in the empty middle of a continent, caught between youth and manhood, naiveté and wisdom, family and flight. Fleeing racism in Reconstruction-era Baltimore, Gabriel Lynch travels with his mother and younger brother to his stepfather's hard-scrabble homestead in 1870s Kansas. As with the Biblical story of the prodigal son, Gabriel finds the "outside" world less exciting and more threatening than he dreamed. He returns to Kansas wiser and chastened, prepared to take his place behind the plow and, more importantly, at the family hearth. "Gabriel's Story" is a classical bildungsroman -- a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character -- told in masterful prose reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy. His is not just a startlingly poetic African-American voice (Durham is the son of Trinidadian immigrants), but a welcome new voice in the rich spectrum of American letters, where authors should -- and must -- be judged in different shades of black and white: The color of words on a page.
Rating:
Summary: The prodigal son returns
Review: The prodigal son always comes home. Iin life, in parable and in literature. And he has returned once more in "Gabriel's Story," a haunting debut by David Anthony Durham. In this incarnation, the wayward youth is a 15-year-old African-American boy in the empty middle of a continent, caught between youth and manhood, naiveté and wisdom, family and flight. Fleeing racism in Reconstruction-era Baltimore, Gabriel Lynch travels with his mother and younger brother to his stepfather's hard-scrabble homestead in 1870s Kansas. As with the Biblical story of the prodigal son, Gabriel finds the "outside" world less exciting and more threatening than he dreamed. He returns to Kansas wiser and chastened, prepared to take his place behind the plow and, more importantly, at the family hearth. "Gabriel's Story" is a classical bildungsroman -- a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character -- told in masterful prose reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy. His is not just a startlingly poetic African-American voice (Durham is the son of Trinidadian immigrants), but a welcome new voice in the rich spectrum of American letters, where authors should -- and must -- be judged in different shades of black and white: The color of words on a page.
Rating:
Summary: An awesome debut
Review: This is a coming-of-age story with elements of All the Pretty Horses and Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch." There are no two dimensional characters in this story. It's a fully fleshed out story of good and evil and all the subtleties in between. Gabriel's Story will grab a hold of you and not let go until the last page. There is violence, but it is not the shoot-'em-up brand. It's a visceral ultra real violence that you may want to shield your eyes from, but like Gabriel, you're a witness and have to live with the evil acts that humans act out upon each other. I'm tempted to say that this is a damn fine first novel, but it would be a first rate novel, whether it was Durham's first or fifth. He is a brilliant writer, able to portray both the beauty and harsh ugliness that composes the world we reside in.
Rating:
Summary: An Outstanding Debut Novel
Review: This is an outstanding novel which is so multi-faceted that it bears reading and rereading to discern the many levels that can be missed the first time. A previous reviewer commented that only one author gave favorable quotes on the book jacket. This was probably the result of a need to go to press quickly. Since publication, the book has received rave reviews in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The New York Times, Time Magazine (listed as one of 6 promising young authors of the year),Booklist, The Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, to name just a few. Those who love serious literature should judge for themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Congrats on a Splendid First Novel
Review: When I consider buying a book I look it over asking two questions. One, does the author have a story to tell? Two, does he or she have the skills to tell that story compellingly? As far as "Gabriel's Story" is concerned, the answer is yes on both counts. The story is strong both because it has a tight spine along which the narrative progresses and because the author picks up on an under-acknowledged feature of the American West, namely the role African-Americans played in its history. The novel educates, but it does so effortlessly, so that a reader is transported along on an adventure tale, probably not even noticing how much the novel adds new dimensions to writing about the West. As for the author's skills... He's got it. The narrative reads like some combination of "Lonesome Dove" and "Paradise", somehow spliced together with a cinematographer's eye for horizon-lines, with a soft heart for the family scenes and a keen eye for the violent passages. And it even has a satisfying ending. That's rare these days and seems especially hard for first novelists to pull off. Congrats to the author.
Rating:
Summary: Congrats on a Splendid First Novel
Review: When I consider buying a book I look it over asking two questions. One, does the author have a story to tell? Two, does he or she have the skills to tell that story compellingly? As far as "Gabriel's Story" is concerned, the answer is yes on both counts. The story is strong both because it has a tight spine along which the narrative progresses and because the author picks up on an under-acknowledged feature of the American West, namely the role African-Americans played in its history. The novel educates, but it does so effortlessly, so that a reader is transported along on an adventure tale, probably not even noticing how much the novel adds new dimensions to writing about the West. As for the author's skills... He's got it. The narrative reads like some combination of "Lonesome Dove" and "Paradise", somehow spliced together with a cinematographer's eye for horizon-lines, with a soft heart for the family scenes and a keen eye for the violent passages. And it even has a satisfying ending. That's rare these days and seems especially hard for first novelists to pull off. Congrats to the author.
Rating:
Summary: THE DANGEROUS WEST
Review: Yes, Kansas was and is a Great Plains state, and anyone who first arrives might say, "I can't believe I'm in Kansas." Kansas is an acquired taste, and Gabriel Lynch, a youngster frresh from the big eastern city of Baltimore, could not quite discover the tastefulness of farm life. Not many teens today could either. But they should read "Gabriel's Story" anyway. This coming of age drama by David Anthony Durham has Gabriel run away from his mom and new step-dad to join up with a motley crew of vicious criminals. Gabriel soon learns to cherish a more simple life. One might say he learned a lesson: Be loyal to your family. They're not as bad as you think. Larry Rochelle, author of DEATH & DEVOTION: A Palmer Morel Mystery
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