God's Country Paperback – May 15, 2003

I picked Percival Everett's God's Country from Amazon solely based on the book description. I began reading western cowboy books and sought one written by a Black author. Everett effectively portrays a time period that coincided with the frontier and the abolition of slavery. Despite the time period in which it was based, he does an excellent job of portraying the Black characters in a positive light. It is easy to read and worth reading.

Highly recommended. This is story-telling at the highest level. The first-person voice grabs you immediately, like True Grit. You jump right into the story. The pace of events is swift. There is an ingenious inter-locking of the characters’ stories. Both black and Indian characters are given plenty of stage time.The white narrator and almost all of the other white characters are blatantly racist. The N-word is used freely. It is clear that the racism is being portrayed, not endorsed.The author is skillful in inventing baroque Classic Western similes. They are witty and funny, part lampoon and part homage.There is plenty of wish-fulfillment. This is not a historical novel. The author changes history like Quentin Tarantino in his movies. General Custer is shown as a vain, cross-dressing dim-wit. The narrator makes comedy out of tragedy.The heart of the novel is the story of a heroic black man who is always the smartest, most capable person in the room. The narrator ends up almost having a crush on him. This sounds trite, but the author makes it work.The ending is a let-down, with the allegorical aspect overwhelming everything. But that is only three pages at the end. Don’t let that stop you from buying God’s Country. It tells a unique story and there is much to like.

I'll keep this short since I read this months ago. The book has a great start. In fact the first chapter is stellar, as good as a Zane Grey novel first chapter. The book makes some good observations of racial prejudice and downright hatred in the west in the nineteenth century, but the plot seems to meander about halfway through, as if the writer was never sure of where he was going in the first place. Maybe the author was aiming for something like absurd realism, but I found the book merely unrealistic. I did finish the book, so I have to add that it had enough of a story to keep me interested in finding out what happens at the end. Better than average.

Percival Everett's "God's Country" is at once the funniest and dryly bitterest novel about race I've read. Not to mention highly entertaining dialog -- all around, one terrific book. Everett just keeps getting better and better for me. Up next, as soon as it arrives (hurry up Amazon), is Grand Canyon, Inc. My husband was out of town this week so I was quite lonely reading Everett last night as I had no one to share the especially thigh-slapping bits except the cats and, well, let's just say their sense humor isn't well developed.

great book until the very last pages!...funny...witty...suspenseful...entertaining...I enjoyed reading the book...the ending did not live up to the book as a whole .

The book "God's country" was in very very bad condition. Especially the pages: some was not cut like the others. It's a shame to sell a book in this condition. It must have been throwing to garbage, nothing else. I'm not satisfied at all!!

When Curt Marder rides up to his homestead he is just too late to save everything. A gang of desperados has burned his cabin, shot his dog and taken his wife. Curt vows to track them down and get his wife back but he knows he'll need help.He goes to the nearest town where he's told the best tracker around is a black man named Bubba. Everyone in town knows Curt has no money or prospects of getting any so won't loan him money. He promises Bubba half his farm if he will help him.But this is no cowboy buddy story. Everett writes the truth about how African Americans were treated in the Old West. There is lots of prejudice and name calling. Whenever there's a crime, that population is always the first to be suspected and often lynched. But Bubba agrees and off the two go.Along the way, the two will encounter lots of other individuals of the West, an Indian tribe, General Custer, saloon singers/prostitutes and various ruffians. They also take a child under their wing as its parents have also been killed by the same gang.I read this novel after Everett's Trees was longlisted for the Booker Prize. My library didn't have that title yet so I wanted to read Everett as he is a new author for me. I enjoyed this novel. It is told in the first person by Curt, who is a despicable person out for himself and no one else. It portrays the Old West in a more realistic manner than the typical Westerns many grew up on do; it was a place of violence and prejudice and often every man for himself. This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.

Percival Everett has become one of my top 3 authors.

Percival Everett writes books that never disappoint. His work is dynamic, special, and you never quite know what he is going to do next. This is a Western, but like no other Western you have ever read. It is funny, irreverent and enormously entertaining. Curt Marder draws back and watches as his homestead burns down, his wife is abducted and his dog is killed by an arrow. Hiring a sardonic tracker Bubba, a black man in a hostile world, he sets out to follow the abductors and set his world to rights. He's hardly the typical hero being a coward, a bigot and a racist, but the wit and humour of his dilemma is mercilessly exploited in this marvellous book which takes in a cross-dressing General Custer, betrayal and burial up to the neck of a man and his horse, and a cornucopia of characters who are as beautifully imagined and surprising as any you've come across before. The book is a satire on the cowpoke history of America, fizzing with humour as well as a blazingly accurate send up of the history of a certain phase of American life. This is the frontier and all the usual stereotypes make an appearance, along with some very adventurous creations. If Mark Twain were alive today, he'd want to claim this novel as his own. I am a great fan of Percival Everett's books. He's a black-American writer with an impeccable pedigree of highly intelligent and riotously imaginative books and this is the Western made alive again by a man with a prodigious talent.

Je pense qu'il n'y a pas meilleure façon de découvrir l'auteur qu'en lisant ses textes dans la langue d'origine et celui-ci est un petit bijou d'humour mais surtout, ce roman met en avant des thématiques très importantes qui permettent de mieux saisir les problèmes actuels de la société américaine et ses problèmes à assimiler des minorités trop longtemps laissées à l'écart.