I don’t read fiction often, and I review it even less frequently on this blog.  I’ll make an exception for something that touches the brain, the heart, or the gut, however…and Jackie Clay’s “Summer of the Eagles” scores a triple-tap of center hits on all three targets.

When people whose work you know and like create a book, it’s a safe bet you’ll know what you’ll find in that book, and like it.  I’ve never met face to face with either Jackie Clay or Oliver Del Signore, but I’ve been reading Jackie’s work for almost twenty years, and have been thankful for Oliver’s skills since I’ve been doing this blog.  You see, Jackie Clay wrote this novel, and there’s a reason she’s the most popular Backwoods Home writer. Oliver Del Signore published it, and he’s the webmaster for Backwoods Home, and has pulled my sorry Luddite butt out of the depths of cyber-confusion more than once.  They are both very good at what they do…but since you are here, you obviously read Backwoods Home and obviously know that already.

A Western, “Summer of the Eagles” is a book you actually can judge by its cover. A proud horse is carrying its human burden through a dark rainstorm, and you can just about feel the cold and the damp, and the need to keep going when there’s no safe place to stop.  Now, open the book. It gets better.

The protagonist has led a hard life, and it’s about to get harder. He’s in a dangerous place, his Winchester ’73 empty in its scabbard because the last five .44-40 cartridges he still has are in the Colt Frontier Six-Shooter on his hip.  (I found myself thinking of Cormac McCarthy’s classic novel of future post-apocalypse dystopia, “On the Road,” with its protagonist in dangerous places armed only with a revolver and two cartridges. As a gun guy, I can relate to that.)

When the hero breaks a rogue Morgan stallion and makes the animal his own with loving patience instead of a whip, it seems real because it is: Jackie based that part on a couple of her own Morgans.  When he helps a benefactor raise a building on his homestead, it rings true because it is: Jackie Clay has been there and done that, too, and BTDT authors write the best fiction.

Regular readers know that Jackie Clay is a damn good writer. I don’t know if anyone has compared her to Shakespeare or Mark Twain yet, but if they haven’t, allow me to be the first. The comparison lies in the fact that the Bard, and Samuel Clemens, and Jackie Clay all write on two levels. There’s one part that a teenage kid reading for a book report can “get.” But there’s another level, like sound frequencies that only dogs can hear, which only someone who has been kicked in the ass by life can hear and understand.  If you haven’t read “MacBeth” or “Huckleberry Finn” since high school, re-read them both again now and you’ll see what I mean.

When people do good for others, good comes back to them when it’s their turn to need it.  When the protagonist gains the fine new Morgan, he doesn’t send the broken-down sorrel that has been loyal to him to the glue factory; he finds a placement for the animal that has purpose and dignity.  “Summer of the Eagles” is a subtle celebration of the values the Backwoods Home extended family of writers and readers has shared from the beginning.

Go to www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/jackieclay, and you’ll find at the top of the page order info for hard copy or Kindle, and a free sample chapter. Start there. Get the book and finish.

I’m betting that you’ll see what I’m talking about, and that you’ll enjoy Jackie Clay’s new novel as much as I did.

14 COMMENTS

  2. Massad, my wife doesn’t read books, but she ordered “Summer of the Eagles and read it in one day-she could not put it down. Very much a fine read! Tell Jackie that we want more of the same.

  4. I just ordered it. I’m currently reading “Mark Twain: A Life” by Ron Powers, next will
    be “Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson” by S.
    C. Gwynne, and then “Summer of the Eagles will follow.
    Sounds like it will be a great read, thanks

  5. Not for nothin’, but don’t get caught by the PC police reading Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer. How many people have thus been prevented from reading these American classics?

    An Englishman once confronted Mark Twain at a party and declared to him, “Sir, I wish I had never read your books on Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.”
    “Why is that?” asked Twain.
    “So I could have the pleasure of reading them again for the first time,” replied the Englishman.

  6. Mas,

    I stopped reading as soon as I noted that you recommend it and that it is a Western. I put it on my Amazon Wish List and do not want to spoil any of the anticipated pleasure I will get from reading it.

    Thanks for the recommendation.

    Mike

  7. Mas, thanks again for the review. And thank you to all the folks who’ve ordered the print and Kindle versions. If you’re not sure you’ll enjoy a western, you can read the first two chapters on our website here: http://bit.ly/1tZCDcr

    Those of you who do read and enjoy the book, please take a minute when you’re done to stop by Amazon and leave a short review. Authors, publishers, other readers, and even Amazon really do pay attention to what reviewers have to say.

    Oliver Del Signore
    Mason Marshall Press

  8. A good read indeed! I just finished the second chapter of Summer of the Eagles, and I’m loving it. Planning on leaving a laudatory review on Amazon when I finish.

    Only time will tell if Jackie Clay will join Mark Twain and Shakespeare in the land of literary giants, but she’s definitely made my list of authors I want to keep up with.

    Michael JT: you mention the PC police in relation to Huckleberry Finn. Did you know that there’s a new, PC-friendly version just out?

    It’s had all the racist parts removed, along with all allusions to violence and conflict, everything that might be considered dis-empowering to women or the disabled, and anything that might be construed by anyone as a micro-aggression. It’s only 22 pages long, and not much of a read… but at least no one will be offended by it…

    : 0

    Looking forward to more Jess Hazzard.

  9. I wish that my eyesight were better so that I could enjoy a good fiction book. I have to use what eyesight I have left for Mas’ books.

    As an aside; when it comes to PC and Mark Twain: go to Hannibal, MO and climb the hill next to the Marina and the Mississippi. It is kind of a lookout point that shows you where the Island is that prominently is featured in Twains books. On that hill you will find a plaque that explains your location. Anyway, the writing on the plaque mentions Jim and the N-word. The n-word has been ground off. You would think that if the city fathers thought to do that, they would jusat have had the pla

  10. Sorry, meant to say: that they would just have had the plaque recast.
    Damn keyboard, anyway.

  11. Reading the opening paragraph in the link provided by Oliver brings to mind my observations of eagles here in the Ozarks. I had never seen an eagle in the wild until after I moved here for my retirement years. The author’s description of the eagle in the first paragraph as a “speck” in the sky describes what came to continually amaze me about eagles, especially bald eagles. Their ability to catch thermal updrafts, rising in scant seconds, from hundreds of feet to thousands of feet in altitude, going from being able to see their majesty in great detail, to being an almost indistinguishable speck in the sky, in what seems to be an instant. What a great way to open a story. I never tire of watching this amazing display by just one of God’s creations. Folks, slow down and enjoy the beauty we’ve been blessed with.

  12. Just got the book and I am about 30% of the way through it. Very good, I love her writing style. Reminds me of Louis L’Amour’s books.

  13. I read the free chapters at lunch on Friday. I couldn’t stop reading. Result: Order mailed to the Author that same day. Thanks for letting me know about it!

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