News of the World

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

This book takes its title from the occupation of the main character, Cpt. Kidd, an army veteran in post-

Civil War Texas who rides from town to town charging auditoriums full of people a dime to hear him read news from far-flung places, made possible only recently by the advent of the telegraph. I'm fairly certain that the profession was real, and it was something I hadn't heard of before. Kidd's humdrum existence is upended when, at one reading, a friend passes off to him a little white girl who had been kidnapped four years earlier by the Kiowa; his mission becomes to return the girl to her aunt and uncle in a little town near San Antonio. Adventure ensues! So too does compassion and empathy as the old man -- Kidd is in his 70s -- works to help the young girl, Johanna, adjust to white society in the kindest way possible.

This was certainly an interesting, captivating read. But the ending -- oh, the ending! This is the second book in a row in which the ending was just too tidy, too happy, too redemptive. Do things really work out like this in real life? Is sorrow and disappointment not a part of the human condition? It was strange to hear the book's tone change so radically near the end. I wish it had ended more abruptly many pages earlier.