The Color of Lightning: A Novel

In her excellant sequil to News of the World, Jiles again links her knowledge of frontier history and Native American culture with a heartfelt story of the risks faced by early settlers of the American plains and the emotional changes experienced by captive children.

Well written, easy to follow character storylines, with wonderful descriptions that place the reader There, in the moment. I love the historical fiction, fleshing out raw history. Important stories as these are quickly being forgotten and works as this based on fact are just wonderful.

Others have thoroughly delineated the plot of this beautifully written novel so I won't repeat what they have said except to note that few books bring alive the tragedy that is the relationship between conquerer and conguered in the Old West like "Color of Lightning". Gives Larry McMurtry a run for his money and to my mind there's no higher praise than that. I'm moving on ( or back) to read Paulette Jiles' first book now.

A beautifully written account of the conflicts between the plains tribes and the Texan settlers in the post Civil War years. The story is based on historical characters, primarily Britt Johnson, a free black man, and his family. I particularly enjoyed the balance that the author achieved in her narration between the point of view of the settlers, the Kiowa and Comanches, and the Quakers who were attempting to broker a highly flawed peace treaty.

A vivid tale, about the consequences of the American westward experience, in dealing with the encroachment of the earliest white settlers into the lands long belonging to the plains Indian tribes. A side not often brought to the light of day, concerning white women and children held captive by these Native American indigenous people. It was a page turning, fantastic read, that I was sorry to put down when done.

Beautifully written portrayal of the tragic clash of two cultures, native Americans and white settlers, from the unique points of view of a freed slave and a well-intentioned but helpless quaker in post civil war Texas.

My first Paulette Jiles book was Stormy Weather which I really enjoyed reading. The Color of Lightning is my second Paulette Jiles book. Love it. Very well researched and written. Hate to put it down. She is becoming a favorite author of mine. Would recommend this book highly.

This novel, based on historical persons and events, is well-told n prose that is by turns brutally descriptive and gorgeously evocative. I really enjoyed reading it in great gulps of imagery and storytelling.

What a great book. I read Stormy Weather and loved it. This book is an "I can't put it down" kind of book. My husband and I are both from west Texas and have visited many of the forts and cemeteries. I could absolutely visualize the travels of the captives and Mr. Johnson as he tracked them. I loved this one. I look forward to reading Enemy Women.

Ms. Jiles is a great writer!

I have read many books involving native Americans and the incite this read provides is the best I have encountered. How they thought, what they valued, how they worshiped, while not the central themes of this book, are there. The author's style, while sometimes a tiny bit overblown, is lovely and literate. A very good read .

Beautifully written, it is a story of settlements in the west at the time of the civil war. There are many clashes with the local Indians resulting in capture of hostages and details are explicit regarding their lives during their capture. The story moves from character to character and is always alive and vibrant. A very good read, even if you are not into westerns.

In the first chapter of The Color of Lightning, Paulette Jiles describes the land that the settlers discovered when they moved into Texas hill country and the high plains: "blue stem and grama grasses and the low curling buffalo grass and wild oats and buckwheat" waved in a unbroken sea. The streams ran clear and the creek bottoms were like parks, with tall trees and green grass. Later, her lead character, Britt Johnson, sees his first buffalo: "No human beings owned them or directed their movement. They went where they meant to go in their own minds. They spread out to the bald horizon under a drifting animal mist, and they smelled good." Our action starts in a seeming Garden of Eden, but conflict emerged fast.

In this carefully researched historical novel, Jiles draws us into a period when change -- ever occurring but so easy to miss -- was dramatic and brutal. The grass that "held the soil in tight fists of roots" would soon be broken for farming, made something different and more fragile in the process. In the way were peoples who roamed in search of grass and game. It was the setting for an inevitable clash of cultures, and Jiles observes with honest eyes.

You can read this book as a colorful and entertaining Wild West tale. Or you an pay attention to bigger story: the historical forces that are the book's true setting, as much as 1860s Texas.

We meet the settlers: families of whites, some of them former slave holders, and free blacks, all looking to start new life in a new land. They hoped they were leaving war behind, but instead found themselves in a violent struggle to survive, pitted against the native tribes who were there first. But Jiles does not write the easy Hollywood version. The native tribes themselves had already been diturbed, displaced. The Comanche, pushed out of their ancestral lands further north, were lately arrived, and had fought with the Kiowa and the Caddo for hunting ranges. Then the tribes found themselves on the same side as they faced the influx of settlers.

Ultimately, of course, western European culture dominated. Technology and numbers eventually defeated the tribes, ending their free access to the land and confining them to reservations where they were hard pressed to preserve their culture. But their defeat began years before. Jiles notes that the newcomers first laid low Comanche with an unseen and unintended weapon: disease. The natives lost their leaders and the roots of their culture when diseases decimated their numbers, leaving them without the elders who would have restrained the young warriors from constant raiding, who would have reminded them of the purpose of raiding.

Jiles tells the story from Britt's perspective, but she does not let settlers or the tribes off the hook.

The story begins as the institution of slavery was coming to an end with the defeat of the Confederacy, but the world was far from safe for Britt, his family and the other settlers. Jiles paints the tight settlement as a place where the Johnsons and the man who emancipated them lived together in mutual respect. But white Texas was not safe for the Johnsons, and any settler could be snatched away and, ironically, enslaved, if captured by the tribes.

The brutal actions of the warriors and downtrodden life of the captives are reported without apology, but we get a glimpse into the humanity of life with the tribes as well: splashes of humor, and the tenderness for the stolen children they adopted and loved.

Into this boiling mix walks the Quaker Indian agent, who tried to transform the nomadic warriors into farmers by rational verbal persuasion.

It was a word where cultures profoundly different in worldview, values and practices were forced to interact. It was a time when doctrines reigned inflexible and when blood settled the score. The tension has a familiar feel to readers making sense of the religious strife, political divisions and economic uncertainty of our own time. As she did in her subsequent story, News of the World, Jiles shows us that the issues we are struggling with and suffering for today are not new.

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Jiles is a poet, but also a realist. In these days of deep division, her books help us face the mirror.

The start of the book is very graphic. But, maybe it needs to be. We sometimes forget that both sides of the settling of the West committed many atrocities against each other. Whether it was specific nations of American Indians, the US soldier that manned the Forts or the settlers themselves. Man is capable of much cruelty. This book is one you don't want to put down. A very good lesson in history.

Absolutely authentic. Not prettified. About loyalty and courage when faced with horrible things. Everyone in the story is very real, they meet life on their terms within the limits they have to deal with. Very good writer.

Historical fiction account of Britt Johnson, an African American free man who moved from Kentucky to Texas with his family towards the end of the Civil War. Johnson was a teamster who ran supplies between Army forts and settlements in Texas, outwitting the Indians who sought to make life difficult for the settlers. Johnson is known for having single-handedly rescuing his wife, daughter and another woman from Indian captivity.

Loved this book about early Texas settlers and the hardships they endured. It was especially interesting to me since I'm from Fort Worth and am familiar with most all of the areas mentioned and their histories.

I chose this book as we've recently traveled throughout the west. Though I found the storyline interesting, the story itself seemed slow moving. I was not drawn to return to the story and so the reading dragged out. I just don't feel I ever connected with the writer's voice. I am pleased to know that many of the characters were based on actual people of the era.