News of the World by Paulette Jiles

An historical midlife fiction book recommendation

A 71-year-old retired army captain in 1870, Texas, must return a 10-year-old girl, captured at age four by the Kiowa, to her relatives in San Antonio. But she’s become Kiowa. Now, as Captain Kidd travels with her, he begins to worry about what will happen at the end of her journey. 

“He thought, resentfully, I raised my girls. I already did that. At the age he had attained with his life span short before him he had begun to look upon the human world with the indifference of a condemned man. Who cares for your fashions and your wars and your causes? I will shortly be gone and I have seen many fashions come and go and many causes so passionately defended only to be forgotten. But now it was different and he was drawn back into the stream of being because there was once again a life in his hands. Things mattered. The strange depression and spiritual chill he had felt back in Wichita Falls was gone. But still he objected. He was an old man. A cranky old man. I raised two of them already. A celestial voice said, Well then, do it again.”

I would have loved this story even if the person charged with bringing the ten-year-old back to her family had been a younger man, but you know I’m all about stories featuring oldsters.

The young girl, Joanna, was kidnapped by Indians when they raided her farm and killed her family. She was four at the time, and in the intervening six years she’s become more Kiowa than white. Captain Kidd is seventy-one. He’s ethical, classy, tough and practical. He’s had a long and storied life, so this adds depth to the tale.

The journey is hard on him, but he’s doing what he said he would do. He thinks about how much his bones hurt and how, after fleeing danger, he needs more time now to recover, but he perseveres. As he and the girl grow closer, to each other and to their destination, he becomes more and more concerned about her future welfare. How he resolves that is delicious. After I finished the book, I replayed it over in my mind, enjoying it again.

I was entranced from the first page. Jiles uses dialogue in the same way as Kent Haruf, without quotation marks, which makes it more subtle, as if you just happened to hear it in passing. Her descriptions are sublime. What a talent. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

Here’s the link on Amazon.