The Dying Grass
A Novel of the Nez Perce War
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Narrated by:
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Henry Strozier
About this listen
The National Book Award winner takes listeners inside the epic fighting retreat of the Nez Perce Indians.
In this new installment in his acclaimed series of novels examining the collisions between Native Americans and European colonizers, William T. Vollmann tells the story of the Nez Perce War, with flashbacks to the Civil War. Defrauded and intimidated at every turn, the Nez Perces finally went on the warpath in 1877, subjecting the US Army to its greatest defeat since Little Big Horn as they fled from Northeast Oregon across Montana to the Canadian border. Vollmann's main character is not the legendary Chief Joseph but his pursuer, General Oliver Otis Howard, the brave, shy, tormented, devoutly Christian Civil War veteran. In this novel we see him as commander, father, son, husband, friend, and killer. Teeming with many vivid characters on both sides of the conflict and written in an original style, The Dying Grass is another mesmerizing achievement from one of the most ambitious writers of our time.
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In 1836, when she was nine years old, Cynthia Ann Parker was kidnapped by Comanche Indians. This is the story of how she grew up with them, mastered their ways, married one of their leaders, and became, in every way, a Comanche woman. It is also the story of a proud and innocent people whose lives pulsed with the very heartbeat of the land. It is the story of a way of life that is gone forever.
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nice book but the narrator could be better.
- By mamaD on 07-31-10
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The Color of Lightning
- By: Paulette Jiles
- Narrated by: Jack Garrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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A soaring work of the imagination based on oral histories of the post - Civil War years in North Texas, Paulette Jiles's The Color of Lightning is at once an intimate look into the hearts and hopes of tragically flawed human beings and a courageous reexamination of a dark American history.
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Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.
- By Merrilee R on 02-20-17
By: Paulette Jiles
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The Light in the Forest
- By: Conrad Richter
- Narrated by: Joel Fabiani
- Length: 4 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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"Johnny Butler was just four years old when his Lenni Lenape "father," Cuyloga, spoke the words that siphoned out his white blood and put Indian blood in its place. Now the Yengwes, the white soldiers, were taking him back to his "true" home. Inside of him hate and anger spread like poisons. The Light in the Forest, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Conrad Richter, will touch a new generation with its lasting truths.
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Short, but it packs a punch!
- By Sher from Provo on 06-10-18
By: Conrad Richter
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Andersonville
- By: MacKinlay Kantor
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 37 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed as the greatest novel ever written about the War Between the States, this searing Pulitzer Prize-winning book captures all the glory and shame of America's most tragic conflict in the vivid, crowded world of Andersonville, and the people who lived outside its barricades. Based on the author's extensive research and nearly 25 years in the making, MacKinlay Kantor's best-selling masterwork tells the heartbreaking story of the notorious Georgia prison where 50,000 Northern soldiers suffered.
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Worthy of the Pulitzer
- By Gillian on 03-22-15
By: MacKinlay Kantor
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Sacajawea
- The Story of Bird Woman and the Lewis and Clark Expedition
- By: Joseph Bruchac
- Narrated by: Nicolle Littrell, Michael Rafkin
- Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins
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Before the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the United States stopped at the Mississippi River. However, their journey opened up the wilderness borders to the Pacific Ocean. The key to the success of this 18 month journey was a young Indian girl - Sacajawea. Without her, the corps of discovery would have been doomed from the start.
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jaycee
- By JANE on 02-25-10
By: Joseph Bruchac
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The Earth Is All That Lasts
- Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and the Last Stand of the Great Sioux Nation
- By: Mark Lee Gardner
- Narrated by: Shaun Taylor-Corbett
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull: Their names are iconic, their significance in American history undeniable. Together, these two Lakota chiefs, one a fabled warrior and the other a revered holy man, crushed George Armstrong Custer’s vaunted Seventh Cavalry. Yet their legendary victory at the Little Big Horn has overshadowed the rest of their rich and complex lives. Now, based on years of research and drawing on a wealth of previously ignored primary sources, award-winning author Mark Lee Gardner delivers the definitive chronicle, thrillingly told, of these extraordinary Indigenous leaders.
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Gripping
- By T. H. on 12-11-22
By: Mark Lee Gardner
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Drums Along the Mohawk
- By: Walter D. Edmonds
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 21 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Drums along the Mohawk, Walter D. Edmonds' masterpiece, is not only the best historical novel about upstate New York since James Fenimore Cooper, it was also number one on the bestseller list for two years, only yielding to the epic Gone with the Wind. This is the story of the forgotten pioneers of the Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War. Here Gilbert Martin and his young wife struggled and lived and hoped.
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Wonderful
- By Robert on 09-06-15
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Crockett of Tennessee
- A Novel Based on the Life and Times of David Crockett
- By: Cameron Judd
- Narrated by: Allan Robertson
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
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From humble beginnings in rural Tennessee to his heroic death defending the Alamo, frontiersman, adventurer, and politician David Davy Crockett embodies the spirit and ideals of the national character. Even during his lifetime, tales of the sharpshooting, skilled woodsman were - to his delight - told, retold, and elaborated on. As a US congressman, the former Creek War militiaman steadfastly opposed President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act.
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I highly recommend
- By That Man They Call Shad on 05-05-21
By: Cameron Judd
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The Lost Wagon Train
- A Western Story
- By: Zane Grey, Joe Wheeler - foreword
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
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The story of a Civil War soldier finding his humanity in the face of horrible savagery. Emerging from the Civil War a shamed and broken man, Stephen Latch turns to a life of thievery and murder. Still hoping to uphold the values of the Confederacy, Latch sets his sights on the wealth of resources pouring westward from the northern United States, putting together a band of ruthless misfits to help him stake his claim of the riches of the caravans.
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Sometimes Good People Do Win
- By Anonymous User on 11-02-24
By: Zane Grey, and others
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Stephanie Ellyne really brings the book to life
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brilliant!
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Stephanie Ellyne really brings the book to life
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An old man lies dying. Confined to bed in his living room, he sees the walls around him begin to collapse, the windows come loose from their sashes, and the ceiling plaster fall off in great chunks, showering him with a lifetime of debris: newspaper clippings, old photographs, wool jackets, rusty tools, and the mangled brass works of antique clocks. Soon, the clouds from the sky above plummet down on top of him, followed by the stars, till the black night covers him like a shroud. He is hallucinating.
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Annoying and pretentious
- By William on 01-12-09
By: Paul Harding
What listeners say about The Dying Grass
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-16-23
The end of living, the beginning of survival
The Nez Perce War put into the context of the late American 19th century. The natives must be forced from their land and culture for the Bostons to manifest their destiny. Sad! Thanks to the author and the narrator for this excellent work. Joseph is referenced as the red Napoleon and this book has the stature of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Not a casual read but would highly recommend to those willing to take the time.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Darwin8u
- 05-24-17
It is all the same. Let us kill, die or ride away
"The destiny of the white race in America is to eat up the red men, and in this rising tide of population that rolls toward the setting sun there is no one who is backward in taking his bite -- no one except the government that temporizes and buys peace, to avoid doing the duty that the individual is doing from choice or from necessity."
-- Phillippe Régis Denis de Keredern de Trobriand (1867)
Pynchon Vollmann Analogy
Gravity's Rainbow:Europe Central::Mason&Dixon:The Dying Grass
This might not be my favorite novel of the last several years, but it is one of the best. And I can't easily grasp a novel that I liked more. I just don't know. My brain is fried. My emotions are fried. My ability to look objectively at this book, and history, and the United States is fried.
One of the best compliments I can give to the best historical fiction is that it doesn't break history, but fills in the gaps and bends it. Hillary Mantel does this very well. So too does Robert Graves, John Williams, and Patrick O'Brian. These other authors seem content to carve prose castles to tell their stories of leaders, kings, and periods. Vollmann just drops a volcano on the reader. There is just so much.
I was trying to describe the feeling of reading Vollmann (I've only read three Vollmann, the other two were Europe Central and Whores for Gloria) to my wife. To me it is equivalent of reading a strange cut-up method combination of Mantel, Pynchon, and Burroughs WHILE tripping on mushrooms. But that still doesn't do it justice. There is no easy metaphor for Vollmann. There is no way to explain Vollmann without using Vollmann. What is the only way to understand Vollmann? You have to grab the biggest Vollmann you can find and jump in without fear and without looking back. He is big, vicious, kind, detailed, warm, clinical. He just doesn't stop. He is exhausting and frustrating. He is the literary equivalent of Hieronymus Bosch. He is the hardest working hypergraphic around.
I can't imagine Vollmann is very profitable to Viking. There are just NOT that many people jostling in the age of Twitter (where the demands of reading and writing are limited to 140 characters) to read 1376 pages of digressive, experimental, inner/outer stream of consciousness narrative fiction. However, I know why they keep him on their Viking reservation: the guy WILL win the Nobel prize someday. Guaranteed. This dude has a long, harsh tail.
"It is all the same. Let us kill, die or ride away."
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45 people found this helpful
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- Christopher
- 09-08-16
Great listening experience!
It took a couple of hours to get accustomed to the writing style but Henry Strozier's performance soon brought it all together. the research and subtexts were very well done and their incorporation into the novel was seamless.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Jack Waters
- 10-18-21
Dense, dreadful, and delightful.
Vollmann is a master of magnifying the details of the past in compelling narratives. An unparalleled talent.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Arjay
- 12-06-18
I Give Up
I have listened to over two hours of this story and it makes no sense, considering what the novel is supposed to be about. I hope that this is one of those books that does not translate to the spoken word, as opposed to the written word. All I have heard is a never-ending series of vignettes that son't appear to relate to the topic and that are not placed in context. Two hours is too long for a preface. Maybe the bokk is an artistic masterpiece but you will have to wade through a lot of chaff to get to the wheat.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Cindy
- 12-26-17
bookgirl
boring. asking for a refund. i normally enjoy this type of historical information. i cannot understand how it received such high ratings.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Michelle Moore
- 02-21-16
Borrrrrrrring & hard to follow
What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?
This was painful
What could William T. Vollmann have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Better transitions
How could the performance have been better?
Made me want to sleep
If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Dying Grass?
About 40 hours
Any additional comments?
Wish I would have looked into this more first
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4 people found this helpful
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- K.C.D.
- 04-24-19
Difficult writing style
The writing style was too much like a news broadcast. This may work well for others,but I don't care for that style and would not want to listen to it for almost 55 hours.
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