Bunyan and Henry or, The Beautiful Destiny by Mark Cecil

 

I read this novel tonight, it's a weirdly cynical-but-optimistic book of something that's maybe closest to Magic Realism--many of the people, places, and things in it have clear real-world analogues--and it has clear and obvious things to say about the Real World (some of those analogues I mentioned are to things in the Here and Now, not the late 1800s). Mentioning the setting in the 1800s now, there are some anachronisms (electric light seems to exist) and I have to believe that someone who knew the folklore referenced here better than I do would find some interesting Easter eggs. The story feels vaguely like a picaresque, but it does build to something like a structural climax; Paul is the main character here, though his story pauses here and there to allow other characters--John Henry, a Chinese blacksmith, a Native American woman--to tell theirs, which makes for some interesting layering. The prose is solid and has moments of sparkle, the characters stand on their own as well as together (the main villain seems like a cross between Trump and some older-fashioned huckster/snake-oil salesman, with perhaps a whiff of the original Wizard of Oz, before Baum turned into something other than a con man) and Cecil seems to have a real handle on his not-quite-really-historical setting. Ends on a remarkably hopeful note. Not perfect, probably not great, but plenty good enough.