American Meteor

A scrappy Brooklyn orphan turned vengeful assassin narrates a visionary tale of the American WestIn this panoramic tale of Manifest Destinythe second stand-alone book in The American Novels seriesStephen Moran comes of age with the young country that he crosses on the Union Pacific, just as the railroad unites the continent. Propelled westward from his Brooklyn neighborhood and the killing fields of the Civil War to the Battle of Little Big Horn, he befriends Walt Whitman, receives a medal from General Grant, becomes a bugler on President Lincolns funeral train, goes to work for railroad mogul Thomas Durant, apprentices with frontier photographer William Henry Jackson, and stalks General George Custer. When he comes face-to-face with Crazy Horse, his life will be spared but his dreams haunted for the rest of his days.By turns elegiac and comic, American Meteor is a novel of adventure, ideas, and mourning: a unique vision of Americas fabulous and murderous history.