The Wild Girl by Jim Fergus is getting a lot of press lately. It seems to have been adopted as one of the book-club selections and is being pushed by a lot of small bookstores. Given that, I guess I was expecting a little more.
This is essentially a western. It takes place in the Sierra Madres and is a fictionalized account based on a few real events -- in particular, an expedition made out of Douglas, Arizona in the 30s to try to recover a Mexican boy who had been abducted by the last of the wild Apaches. The "wild girl" of the title is one of the Apaches who is captured by a contract hunter. She is then used as a possible trading piece by the expedition to get the boy back.
Even though its a western, its definitely got some modern touches to it. Don't think there are many Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour novels that feature (a) a female anthropologist working on her PhD and (b) a flamboyantly gay leading character -- or a "sissy" as he's called in the book. Especially the second character makes for some funny scenes like when he shows up for the expedition in a complete safari costume including pith helmet or when he rides to the rescue in matching long fringe pants and jacket.
The book is good but not great. The writing keeps you moving but he uses a lot of standard cliches -- e.g. a row of crows that look like monks. Once you're about 30 pages in, the story becomes pretty predictable. While I didn't give up on it, I wasn't thrilled by it either. Oh well, not everything is going to be spectacular.
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