Galley Talk: Sun Going Down

In the sprawling family saga Sun Going Down (Touchstone, May), Jack Todd reminds us that life in the west during the late 1800s was more difficult and unhappy than we'd like to remember. People were hurt (physically and emotionally), and not every ending was happy. Todd draws on personal family history to tell the story of the Paint family, beginning with Ebenezer, who barely escaped the Civil War by selling his rundown Mississippi paddle boat and heading for the Dakotas. His courtship and marriage to Cora is reminiscent of the fiery relationships we enjoy so much in Larry McMurtry's novels. By the time their twin boys are born and they head for Wyoming, we are enmeshed in their struggle to stay alive, make a little money and keep moving. And isn't that—the struggle—what we look for in all great western novels? Todd's narrative brings these characters to life, portraying them as people of few words but big, bold actions.