-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
In this panoramic tale of Manifest Destiny, Stephen Moran comes of age with the young country that he crosses on the Union Pacific, just as the railroad unites the continent. Propelled westward from his Brooklyn neighborhood and the killing fields of the Civil War to the Battle of Little Big Horn, he befriends Walt Whitman, becomes a bugler on President Lincoln's funeral train, apprentices with frontier photographer William Henry Jackson, and stalks General George Custer. When he comes face-to-face with Crazy Horse, his life will be spared but his dreams haunted for the rest of his days.
By turns elegiac and comic, American Meteor is a novel of adventure, ideas, and mourning: a unique vision of America's fabulous and murderous history.
"Starred Review. [T]his feels like a campfire tale, an old-fashioned yarn full of rich historical detail about hard-earned lessons and learning to do right." - Publishers Weekly
"Most of the story will seem familiar to any student of American history, but [Lock] writes beautifully, with many subtle, complex insights, such as, 'There is no greater infidelity than memory's desertion,' 'Behind every gunman stands another gunman,' and 'It takes time to perfect cruelty.'" - Booklist
"This novel memorably encompasses grand themes and notions of transcendence without ever losing sight of the grit and moral horrors present in the period." - Kirkus
This information about American Meteor was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Charles Giraudet
Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage and radio plays. He has won The Dactyl Foundation Literary Fiction Award, The Paris Review Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, and has been longlisted twice for the Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize. He has also received writing fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey.
If you liked American Meteor, try these:
by Anthony McCann
Published 2019
An "epic exploration" of the 2016 right-wing Oregon Occupation - "an excellent microcosm by which we might better understand our difficult national history and distressing political moment" (Maggie Nelson).
by Robert Olmstead
Published 2018
A gripping narrative of the infamous hunt which drove the buffalo population to near extinction--the story of a moment in our history in which mass destruction of an animal population was seen as the only route to economic solvency. And the intimate story of how that hunt changed two people forever.
by Lin Enger
Published 2015
Breathtaking portrait of the vast Plains landscape are matched by the rich expanse of characters' emotional terrain, as pivotal historical events blend seamlessly in this story of a family's sacrifice and devotion.
A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas--a place ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
