From Library Journal
In alternating chapters, two narratives?one set in the American West, the other in Twenties Hollywood?gradually unfold and intersect. The Western saga centers around a boy who, after his English employer succumbs to a fever, attaches himself to a band of wolvers making their perilous way through hostile Indian territory into Canada. Fifty years later, in Hollywood, Saskatchewan native Harry Vincent is taken in hand by Rachel Gold, a so-called "new woman," as a scenarist for a studio headed by the mysterious and elusive Damon Ira Chance. Chance dreams of producing an epic Western in the tradition of his hero, D.W. Griffith, that will stand as a landmark of cinematic history. To this end, he hires Vincent to track down an old-timer whose story he is sure will lend itself to his purpose. This winner of the Governor General's award for fiction, Canada's top literary prize, has a sweeping scope and an evocative sense of time and place. We have Ludlum's spy stories, Grisham's legal thrillers, and Patrick O'Brian's sea tales, but on the quality literary front so dominated by fiction written by and appealing to women, it is a rare pleasure to be able to recommend one for the boys.?Barbara Love, Kingston P.L., OntarioCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Entertainment Weekly
The power of movies to rewrite history is the fascinating theme fueling this trenchant novel. Canadian writer Vanderhaeghe seamlessly alternates two interconnected stories...


The New York Times Book Review, John Motyka
In his fine new novel, the Canadian writer Guy Vanderhaeghe deftly juxtaposes the events of two different time periods to dramatize his concern with history--namely, what properly constitutes historical inquiry, and how and where history is written or told. One part of the plot chronicles the gritty and ultimately dark experiences of the former valet referred to in the book's title, who joins up with a group of trappers as they pursue Indian horse thieves in Montana and southern Canada in the 1870s. The other presents an evocative look at 1920s Hollywood, in which a scenarist named Harry Vincent tells of his efforts to find a hardened old cowboy's cowboy named Shorty McAdoo, about whom he is writing a screenplay.


Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Katharine Weber
An epic tale that brings together the American West before the turn of the century with the Hollywood of the 1920s, The Englishman's Boy, though far from perfect, is nearly a great (North) American novel.... The Englishman's Boy is essentially such a good idea that each segue from past to present to past again is a graceful little leap between subtly matched gestures and images. Vanderhaeghe has brought together two familiar and essentially American settings and linked them in an imaginative and surprising way with his outsider's sensibility.


From Kirkus Reviews
An ambitious novel, set along the US-Canadian border and in Hollywood, that won for its author (Homesick, 1990, etc.) Canada's prestigious Governor General's Award. The story consists of parallel narratives, the first taking place in 1873 when a band of ``wolfers'' (wolf-hunters) camped in the northern Montana Territory lose their horses to a furtive Indian raiding party. A determined posse pursues the thieves northward into Saskatchewan, where a terrible vengeance is exacted. Among those avengers are the mysterious title character, a stoical drifter who will become both the victim and nemesis of the men with whom he has cast his lot, and Shorty McAdoo, a Scotsman who will forever after be burdened by his failure to act as the ``civilized man'' he believed he was. The second narrative, set in 1923, recounts in his own words the ordeal undergone by Harry Vincent, a crippled journalist employed by playboy moviemaker Damon Ira Chance, a self-described ``visionary'' who longs to film an ``epic western'' incarnating his conviction that ``the spirit of the age would express itself in an endless train of images.'' Harry seeks out Shorty McAdoo's story, not realizing that Chance will betray his ostensible vision, and that he will also unknowingly betray the aged, guilt-ridden McAdoo. The two stories intersect in a melodramatic climax that, unfortunately, drains the novel of much of the integrity given it by Vanderhaeghe's sharply imagined confrontation scenes and salty dialogue. The novel has a lot on its mind, and few readers will leave it unfinished, but there's a paradoxical problem at its core: As gripping as the manhunt story is, its characters remain frustratingly opaque (even the haunting figure of the Englishman's boy only awkwardly inhabits the narrative); and, despite Vanderhaeghe's persuasive characterization of the appealing Harry, the story he's part of feels inchoate and derivative. Two good half-novels here, but they don't come together as a whole. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"[A] fine new novel . . . Vanderhaeghe deftly juxtaposes the events of two different time periods to dramatize his concern with history . . . By turns a western, a critique of Hollywood, and a novel of ideas."—John Motyka, The New York Times Book Review

"An epic tale that brings together the American West before the turn of the century with the Hollywood of the 1920s . . . Each segue from past to present to past again is a graceful little leap between subtly matched gestures and images."—Katharine Weber, The Los Angeles Times

"Fascinating . . . Vanderhaeghe seamlessly alternates two interconnected stories . . . Masterful storytelling."—Entertainment Weekly

"This is a terrific yarn, a la Larry McMurtry: funny and scary and impeccably detailed, told in classic Sophie's Choice structure: naive narrator learns the story of a terrible moral post. And then, bam! There's the stunning truth in Vanderhaeghe's insight."—Sandra Scofield, author of A Chance to See Egypt

"A compelling read . . . Vanderhaeghe vividly conveys the dangers and discomforts of the journey."—The San Diego Union-Tribune

"Displaying a flair for the kind of descriptive prose that makes plain the essential characteristics of both the novel's scenery, which is stunning, and its characters, who are unforgettable."—Kevin Driscoll, The Washington Times

"It is a wonder and glory--written by a man who has plundered the language for all its treasures."—Timothy Findley, author of The Pianoman's Daughter

"[A] superb novel . . . [Vanderhaeghe] does a wonderful job."—The Dallas Morning News

"Superb . . . Immensely readable and finely crafted . . . American readers ready to confront our national facility for fashioning myth from reality will be well rewarded."—Judy Doenges, The Seattle Times

"Expertly written . . . [The Englishman's Boy] perfectly creates a world and characters you can't help but care about."—Detroit Free Press

"A compelling yarn that delivers provocative intellectual content about the ways our tendency to mythologize history can prevent us from learning its lessons."—David Wiegand, The San Francisco Chronicle



Review
"[A] fine new novel . . . Vanderhaeghe deftly juxtaposes the events of two different time periods to dramatize his concern with history . . . By turns a western, a critique of Hollywood, and a novel of ideas."—John Motyka, The New York Times Book Review

"An epic tale that brings together the American West before the turn of the century with the Hollywood of the 1920s . . . Each segue from past to present to past again is a graceful little leap between subtly matched gestures and images."—Katharine Weber, The Los Angeles Times

"Fascinating . . . Vanderhaeghe seamlessly alternates two interconnected stories . . . Masterful storytelling."—Entertainment Weekly

"This is a terrific yarn, a la Larry McMurtry: funny and scary and impeccably detailed, told in classic Sophie's Choice structure: naive narrator learns the story of a terrible moral post. And then, bam! There's the stunning truth in Vanderhaeghe's insight."—Sandra Scofield, author of A Chance to See Egypt

"A compelling read . . . Vanderhaeghe vividly conveys the dangers and discomforts of the journey."—The San Diego Union-Tribune

"Displaying a flair for the kind of descriptive prose that makes plain the essential characteristics of both the novel's scenery, which is stunning, and its characters, who are unforgettable."—Kevin Driscoll, The Washington Times

"It is a wonder and glory--written by a man who has plundered the language for all its treasures."—Timothy Findley, author of The Pianoman's Daughter

"[A] superb novel . . . [Vanderhaeghe] does a wonderful job."—The Dallas Morning News

"Superb . . . Immensely readable and finely crafted . . . American readers ready to confront our national facility for fashioning myth from reality will be well rewarded."—Judy Doenges, The Seattle Times

"Expertly written . . . [The Englishman's Boy] perfectly creates a world and characters you can't help but care about."—Detroit Free Press

"A compelling yarn that delivers provocative intellectual content about the ways our tendency to mythologize history can prevent us from learning its lessons."—David Wiegand, The San Francisco Chronicle



Book Description
Winner of the Governor General's Award

Counterpointing the stories of the legendary Western cowboy Shorty McAdoo and Harry Vincent, the ambitious young screenwriter commissioned to retell his story in 1920s Hollywood, this novel reconstructs an epic journey through Montana into the Canadian plains, by a group of men pursuing their stolen horses.

The Englishman's Boy intelligently and creatively depicts an American West where greed and deception are tempered by honor and strength. As Richard Ford has noted, "Vanderhaeghe is simply a wonderful writer. The Englishman's Boy, spanning as it does two countries, two centuries, two views of history—the Canadian Wild West as 'imagined' by Hollywood—is a great accomplishment. Readers, I think, will find this book irresistible."



From the Publisher
WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD Critical Praise for The Englishman's Boy: "Guy Vanderhaeghe is simply a wonderful writer. The Englishman's Boy, spanning as it does two countries, two centuries, two views of history--the Canadian Wild West as 'imagined' by Hollywood--is a great accomplishment. Readers, I think, will find this book irresistible." --Richard Ford "[A] fine new novel...Guy Vanderhaeghe deftly juxtaposes the events of two different time periods to dramatize his concern with history...by turns a western, a critique of Hollywood, and a novel of ideas." --John Motyka, The New York Times Book Review "An epic tale that brings together the American West before the turn of the century with the Hollywood of the 1920s...Each segue from past to present to past again is a graceful little leap between subtly matched gestures and images." --Katharine Weber, Los Angeles Times "Fascinating...Vanderhaeghe seamlessly alternates two interconnected stories...Masterful storytelling." --Entertainment Weekly "A compelling yarn that delivers provocative intellectual content about the ways our tendency to mythologize history can prevent us from learning its lessons." --David Wiegand, San Francisco Chronicle

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Englishman's Boy brilliantly links together Hollywood in the 1920s with one of the bloodiest, most brutal events of the nineteenth-century Canadian West - the Cypress Hills Massacre. Vanderhaeghe's rendering of the stark, dramatic beauty of the western landscape and of Hollywood in its most extravagant era - with its visionaries, celebrities, and dreamers - provides vivid background for scenes of action, adventure, and intrigue. Richly textured, evocative of time and place, this is an unforgettable novel about power, greed, and the pull of dreams that has at its centre the haunting story of a young drifter - "the Englishman's boy" - whose fate, ultimately, is a tragic one.

SYNOPSIS

In the tradition of Cormac McCarthy, acclaimed Canadian author Guy Vanderhaeghe explores the geographic and spiritual frontier of the American West, from the lawless borderlands between America and Canada in the 1870s to the birth of the Hollywood mythmaking machine in the 1920s. As the novel's two linked narratives move back and forth in time, Vanderhaeghe explores the innate lawlessness of all such border zones, their instability and propensity for violence. The winner of Canada's prestigious Governor General's Award, The Englishman's Boy is a serious yet viscerally exciting examination of history and our telling of it.

FROM THE CRITICS

Kirkus Reviews

An ambitious novel, set along the US-Canadian border and in Hollywood, that won for its author (Homesick, 1990, etc.) Canada's prestigious Governor General's Award.

The story consists of parallel narratives, the first taking place in 1873 when a band of "wolfers" (wolf-hunters) camped in the northern Montana Territory lose their horses to a furtive Indian raiding party. A determined posse pursues the thieves northward into Saskatchewan, where a terrible vengeance is exacted. Among those avengers are the mysterious title character, a stoical drifter who will become both the victim and nemesis of the men with whom he has cast his lot, and Shorty McAdoo, a Scotsman who will forever after be burdened by his failure to act as the "civilized man" he believed he was. The second narrative, set in 1923, recounts in his own words the ordeal undergone by Harry Vincent, a crippled journalist employed by playboy moviemaker Damon Ira Chance, a self-described "visionary" who longs to film an "epic western" incarnating his conviction that "the spirit of the age would express itself in an endless train of images." Harry seeks out Shorty McAdoo's story, not realizing that Chance will betray his ostensible vision, and that he will also unknowingly betray the aged, guilt-ridden McAdoo. The two stories intersect in a melodramatic climax that, unfortunately, drains the novel of much of the integrity given it by Vanderhaeghe's sharply imagined confrontation scenes and salty dialogue. The novel has a lot on its mind, and few readers will leave it unfinished, but there's a paradoxical problem at its core: As gripping as the manhunt story is, its characters remain frustratingly opaque (even the haunting figure of the Englishman's boy only awkwardly inhabits the narrative); and, despite Vanderhaeghe's persuasive characterization of the appealing Harry, the story he's part of feels inchoate and derivative.

Two good half-novels here, but they don't come together as a whole.