Positive story with a satisfying end

Usually I know exactly why I am enjoying a book soon after I start reading it. I liked Jiles’ book from the first page, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was that gripped me.

Yes, it felt rich in description, but that isn’t enough to peak my interest. The story had potential, I noted.

Set in 1870, News of the World is the story of retired US Army Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd who travels through northern Texas reading the important news stories to audiences who are willing to pay for this service.

Maybe, I thought, it’s this novel idea of using a newspaper like this. Stories about journalism do attract me. Captain Kidd, a 71-year-old widower who lived through three wars and fought in two, likes his solitary life, which is about to be disrupted when someone in Wichita Falls offers him a $50 gold piece to take a young orphan to relatives in San Antonio, Texas.

The ten-year-old girl, Johanna, had been kidnapped four years ago by Kiowa raiders who killed her parents and sister.

The Indians raised the girl as their own.

She has forgotten all English so it’s not the communication between Johanna and Captain Kidd that grabbed my attention.

Action is quite sparse until about three quarters of the way through the book when a band of nefarious characters decide they want to take the child from Captain Kidd.

There’s more distance than the 400-mile journey in this book to cover if you want to count the emotional distance between Johanna and Captain Kid. Captain Kidd never reconciles himself totally with the momentous task he agreed to when he swore to deliver the girl safely to relatives.

Eventually the girl and the old man do begin to trust each other. A good, old-fashioned, cowboy-type shoot-out helps the process.

It is near the end of the book, when Captain Kidd delivers the girl to her relatives that I realise the value of this book. The fact that two strangers could take such a journey over such a long distance and grow as individuals appealled to me Their cultural differences struck me as well. One realises that Johanna’s life has changed permanently.

No matter what happens, she will probably never be able to totally assimilate herself into white society, although one wonders if this is possible because she is still so young.

Faced with difficult decisions, Captain Kidd must decide the child’s fate in more ways that one by the end of the book.

Themes of family, commitment, trust, honour, loneliness and love abound, and they are written about with such subtlety and grace that they are barely noticeable until the end of the book.

The characters of Captain Kidd and Johanna grow slowly and endearingly – like real-life people.

This allows readers to get lost in the story; lost in the journey.

The author never relies on gratuitous violence or sex to advance her story. She takes her time to spin a beautiful, positive story with a most satisfying ending.

Down to the very end, the author feels no need to spring surprise on the reader.

In short, News of the World is a beautiful novel that will make you wonder about how culture defines us. It is a satisfying story because it is the story between a grandfather figure and a child.