The Trackers

I couldn’t put this book down, reading it over two days. The story brings alive the world of 1939, as the main character travels from an East Coast Tidewater town to a small Wyoming town, then to Hoovervilles and lawless Florida swamplands. The novel offers a marvelous opportunity to embrace the whole of America during the Depression. And, we learn that violence is endemic to American culture, with individuals or local authorities holding more power than the Federal government. It was a time when the people lost their trust in American ideals and institutions, while overseas, fascism was a growing threat.

…some days the converging portents felt like the end of the world was approaching, like the next logical progression would be a show more plague erupting or an asteroid plunging straight for us.
from the Trackers by Charles Frazier

Val has been hired by the Works Progress Administration to paint a mural on a newly built post office, art that reflected the history of the town. Val would show the people the importance of art and how it can inspire pride. He plans a scene of progression, showing the conquest of the West, with trackers in the center.

A local rancher offers Val a cabin, and friendship. John Long lucked out when he chose to inherit the ranchland that made him rich with oil wells and cattle. Stepping into Long’s home, Val first sees a gallery of fine art. Then he meets Long’s beautiful wife, Eve. She had been a singer with traveling band when they met. As a teenager, she was sent from home to find work, and she joined the company of hobos, traveling across the country. Long offered her comfort and wealth, but she bristled at being one more collected object, a trophy wife for Long’s political aspirations.

Val dines with the Longs, is invited to go riding and on picnics. He meets Faro, a cowboy who had once known Billy the Kid. Long trusts Val enough that when Eve disappears, he hires him to track her down. But, he is not the only one on her trail.

The law was whoever had the most guns, same as it always was throughout history.
from The Trackers by Charles Frazier

Like all the best historical fiction novels, the past informs our present. “For long stretches, you could believe we were still the imagined country whose overall movement was steadily and surely upward,” Val thinks. He is a socialist whose artist hero is Diego Rivera who portrayed the works on Ford’s assembly line and River Rouge factory on the walls of the Detroit Museum of Art. He believes that the Depression had revealed the fundamental flaws in the Constitution, allowing capitalism to have freewheeling control over the workers who are now organizing unions.

This historical backstory and political commentary is undergirded by the scaffold of a love story. Long’s love for his wife feels like a love of possession, but Val has also fallen for Eve. When he finally finds her, he becomes compromised. Long has hired him to do a job, bring Eve back, but Val wants Eve, too. And then, the tracker becomes tracked as well.

This is a fantastic read, and I hope, will become a fantastic movie. show less

I picked up The Trackers: A Novel by Charles Frazier off the lucky day shelf at the library: you get them for two weeks with no renewals. I knew that would be fine as I have read everything else Frazier wrote and figured I only needed a day or two. I was right.

Frazier's story is set during the Depression in a small Wyoming town where the main character, Val Welch, has been hired to paint a mural on the post office wall. Through his work he meets the locals, including the town's wealthy landowner, John Long, and his young wife, Eve, a former singer. Welch stays in a cottage on the ranch, giving him first hand experiences of the Longs and their ranch hands. When Eve disappears, Long hires Welch to find her, using faulty logic that leads show more to danger for Welch as he moves from California to Florida in pursuit of Eve. Along the way, we are immersed in Depression era America.

The story was excellent, well-crafted characters, perfectly plotted. show less

I really became attached to "Val"---the painter of the post office mural and describer of what happened during this three month period Frazier describes so beautifully---using colors in life to enhance the telling. In some ways the story seems long and drawn out but as the reader, I wanted to know what Val was thinking and doing and that's where we are, page by page. I loved Cold Mountain...this is the same writing---clear and descriptive. The historical aspects of this entire book were a wonderful help in trying to place this story in time.

I knew of Charles Frazier as the author of the best-selling novel Cold Mountain as well as a book I liked even better, Thirteen Moons. Those aren't his only two others, but they were the two I knew of. The Trackers is another work of historical fiction, this time taking place in the later stages of the Great Depression. Valentine Welch is a young artist, recently graduated from college, who, through the auspices of his college professor and mentor, gets a job painting a WPA mural on the wall of a post office in remote Dawes, Wyoming. In addition, he has been offered lodging on the nearby Long Shot Ranch, owned by a wealthy landowner, John Long. Long, who has political ambitions, has a younger wife, Eve, with a past that includes years show more spent on the road, picking fruit, surviving in hobo camps, and eventually singing in traveling country bands. To Val they seem an unlikely couple and during the course of story, no one who has ever read a novel will be surprised to learn, their relationship begins to fray in dramatic fashion.

I found the beginning stages of The Trackers to be its most satisfying section. Frazier's writing style is very engaging, and Val's long musings and observations about the nature of the Depression and the damage it has done to millions of lives in the name of greed and irresponsibility I found very well done. Val's description of the Wyoming landscape and Eve's description of the horrors (and satisfactions) of her earlier life are all quite good. Another memorable character is Faro, the Long Shot's foreman who has a colorful and dangerous past of his own.

Once the plot line gets going, however, as Eve takes off with a small Renoir of her husband's to parts unknown and for reasons obscure, and Long hires Val to go find her, things begin to get a bit more pedestrian. The storyline stays engaging, and Frazier's writing overall remains strong, but I began to wonder what it was all for. Also the common trope of the innocent abroad, much less worldly than he believes himself to be and constantly in error, began to wear on me a bit. Time and again I would say to myself, "You know nothing, Jon Snow."*

However, I don't want to overemphasize the novel's faults. All and all I found it entertaining and fun, with some stretches of really lovely writing and a good if not particularly believable plot.

* Game of Thrones reference show less

Struggling artist Val Welch comes to Dawes, Wyoming as he was lucky enough to land the job of painting a mural for the Dawes Post Office. He landed this assignment through Roosevelt’s WPA program and he is to create a mural that represents the area.

While staying at Dawes he has been offered accommodation by a wealthy rancher and his wife, John Long and his wife, Eve supply a cottage and meals and all too soon a friendship is developing between the three of rhem.. Long has political aspirations which doesn’t please his wife and she eventally leaves, taking a valuable painting with her. Rancher Long recruits Val to track Eve down and he is soon driving the roads of America from Seattle to Florida on his quest.

The author offers up some show more vivid descriptions of Depression era America along with comments and insights into the times. The slow-moving story failed to excite or draw me in but it was interesting as the author ensures that he develops every character. This was my first book by this author but from what I gather, perhaps this was not the best book to be my introduction. show less

Charles Frazier’s first novel was Cold Mountain, one of the finest book I’ve ever read, and a magnificent movie as well. I’ve since read Thirteen Moons and Nightwoods, two fine novels, but not nearly the equal of his first effort. I recently finished Varina, and found it another notch below those. This novel pretty much catches me up with all of Frazier’s work.

The book is set during the Depression and has as its protagonist, a mural artist named Valentine, who is commissioned to paint a mural at a post office in rural Wyoming. Through a connection from his benefactor, he is housed at a luxurious ranch nearby. Here, he meets the other main actors in the drama: A wealthy ranch owner and aspiring politician; his younger, free show more spirit wife, and the ultra-capable, hard ranch hand who oversees its operation.

The wife runs away, and the ranch owner sends Val to collect her, setting off an odyssey that spans the country and its various Depression era class struggles.

While the book is not without its charms, at the end of the day, it is utterly average. I can’t help but feel like the author’s work has digressed with each effort. It must be something of a curse to produce a magnificent first novel, making it unlikely that you will ever replicate the effort. Sadly, that appears to be the case here. show less

Well written but ho-hum story that just failed to ignite any interested in me. It's a stone's throw away from being a gumshoe story about tracking down a dame, being sent to do so by a mystery man of unclear (and possibly dishonest) motive. The trouble is instead of all the mystery or hard boiled noir goodness, you get a story where none of the participants are particularly invested in or interested in the outcome.