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(More customer reviews)As I read this book, I kept wondering if it was really that good, or if Harry Casey had simply managed to hit me so close to my heart. Some of the parallels with my own family and the Clearys are astounding, and although I do know Mr. Casey, I don't know him, nor does he know me, well enough that he could have used us for a pattern. So I believe Harry Casey was able to look into all of the local lives so deeply, and with so much feeling, that he could not only describe the people and the places, but was able to portray their emotions to a remarkable degree. Of course having been a newspaper owner and editor, he would naturally have been able to describe his fictional counterpart, Fred Godfrey, but it doesn't stop there. Even after considering and admiring all of these peripheral issues, I still had to admit that Harry Casey is just a dang good writer. His work will become more and more appreciated as time passes and people come to fully realize and appreciate what a splendid representation of those days in the Salinas Valley it actually is. This book deserves a place alongside some of the books of John Steinbeck in that regard, and there are facets of history here that will never be found in a conventional history book.
Of course, let's not lose track of the fact that this guy also writes a very entertaining novel.
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This sequel to Land of the Eagle continues the saga of the dynamic Cleary family as it is joined by the pioneer newspaper family of a small California town. Millie Godfrey, daughter of the struggling country editor, and Spud Cleary, son the popular, wealthy rancher, fall in love and set in motion events that combine for an exciting, robust combination of pioneer journalism and ranch life. This is a novel that mixes the smell of printer's ink with the dust of a cattle drive. It covers forty years, taking members of the two families from the gold fields of the Yukon to the streets of San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake, from a battlefield in France to an influenza hospital of 1919, from the Irish civil war to the civic struggles of a pioneer town.
Casey writes with the authenticity of a newspaper editor for 43 years and a horseman and cattleman whose own roots reach deeply into the town, the hills and valleys in which this story is set. Woven through the pages is the love story of Millie and Spud, suddenly challenged by powerful forces. As the feisty editor struggles to save his weekly newspaper and his editorial integrity, and as the fight for Irish freedom reaches all the way into a small California valley, the Cleary family is beset by a tragedy that serves as a catalyst to bring this novel to an unforgettable climax.
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