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The Searchers: The Making Of An American Legend (2013)

by Glenn Frankel(Favorite Author)

3.85 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1608191052 (ISBN13: 9781608191055)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Bloomsbury USA

review 1: I was going to give this three stars for a while, but it changed my mind as it finished. This book is a brilliant history linking a famous event of American history to the legends and the works this and other similar events they inspired. I first read, "Ride the Wind" by Lucia St. Clair Robson then I read LeMay's novel "The Searchers" which I surprisingly quite liked. I intend to watch the movie next which I might also be surprised by as I don't really expect to like it. But this book was a wonderful account linking old and new, legend to legacy and I did greatly enjoy it.What was leading me to not like it for a little while in the middle was the feeling that mistakes were being made. If there are logical inconsistencies (read my updates to see a few examples) and a... morelso grammatical mistakes, then what else might be wrong I have to wonder? I realized that I didn't really start noticing these mistakes until the later parts of the book that were about the novel and the movie. And I notice that several people claimed this part felt "rushed" to them and I wonder if these mistakes were part of that. Perhaps the author was really more interested in Cynthia Ann's story? Perhaps he knew that story and that of Quanah's were riddles with inaccuracies and so he spent a lot of time noticing those and comparing the differing accounts but then ignored any seeming inaccuracies he found in the making of the movie? I don't know, but I still loved the ending. Perhaps I just liked the true history stuff to be more interesting than the movie history.I also would have loved a map of the Comanche environs and a timeline or two since the book jumps back and forth a bit and it was a bit hard to keep track of who and what were actually overlapping some in time.Anyways, overall I did really enjoy it and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in American frontier history, it is a pretty balanced view throughout. If you don't care much about the movie you can easily skip the whole section about the movie and you probably wouldn't miss much. Except, I would read the final "legacy" chapter which brings together themes from the early history and combines them with the legacy of the movie.
review 2: This book fell naturally into two parts, both of which I found fascinating. First, Frankel explored Texas history and the conflicts between Mexicans, Americans, and native Indian tribes as the land was settled. Basically, everyone behaved very badly, and Frankel does an evenhanded job describing how folks are folks, and no one had the monopoly on ruthless killing or viewing the other group as subhuman. He revisits the famous legend (to Texans) of Cynthia Ann Parker, kidnapped by the Comanches as a child after much of her family is slaughtered, and then 24 years later re-kidnapped by her relatives after much of her Comanche community is slaughtered. Knowing almost nothing about captivity stories (beyond Elizabeth George Speare's book CALICO CAPTIVE), I found them enthralling. After treating Cynthia Ann's unfortunate life, Frankel describes that of her "half-breed" son Quanah, who tried to serve as a bridge between the defeated Comanches and the white world.In the 2nd part of the book, THE SEARCHERS looks at John Ford's movie of the same name, starring John Wayne, accorded by some to be one of the greatest westerns of all time. I've never seen it, but now I'm waiting for my husband to read this book so we can watch it together.This is great read for lovers of history, Native American studies, and film lore. Be warned--there are some gruesome, horrifying bits--not least of which are the ways director Ford treated people! less

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