BUNYAN AND HENRY - Mark Cecil

American legends John Henry (the steel driving man) and Paul Bunyan (the giant lumberjack) are reimagined and given new backstories in this modern fable by Mark Cecil.

Paul Bunyan is a miner in the run-down, dirty Lump Town. He's stuck in the job with no way to leave and no way to advance. The town is tightly controlled by the mogul El Boffo. When Paul's wife, Lucette, gets sick from the toxic Lump that's being mined, Paul sets out to meet with El Boffo and bring it to his attention.

But people don't just meet with El Boffo whenever they want and Paul learns that El Boffo runs a fighting ring and the winner might have a chance to meet the man who owns the mine.  Paul's a big, young man, but he's a gentle giant - he's never been in a fight in his life.  With the help of a good corner man and a supernatural 'gleam' that lights up in front of Paul, directing him with where to go or what to do, Paul quickly climbs the winner circle in the fighting ring, but his final battle is against El Boffo's champion, a former steel-driving man named John Henry.

John is a man on the run, having left is forced steel-driving days and always watchful for the F.O.L. (Fraternal Order of Liberty - a thinly disguised K.K.K. organization). The pair find they are evenly matched and form a bond that gets them out of the ring and through a number of escapades. 

I really enjoyed this book, though my enjoyment tempered some the more I went through it.

Despite living in Minnesota (where the statue of Paul Bunyan can often be found on tourism marketing) I can honestly say I haven't thought of Paul Bunyan or his legend in decades but just seeing this book brought about a certain amount of excitement.  I do often enjoy reading retellings and mash-ups of classic myths, legends, and stories and this stands out as being quite unique.  I suspect that as this gains some traction we'll see more of these kinds of stories.

Right from the start author Mark Cecil sets the tone of high allegory.  Names like Lump Town and El Boffo put us in the right frame of mind. Sometimes, though, he goes a little overboard, hitting us over the head as if the reader isn't going to get it. For instance, Bunyan and Henry are sitting in an all-Black tavern, with lookouts watching for signs of the F.O.L. and repeatedly people come up to Henry and ask if he's okay and if the white guy at the table can be trusted.  Repeatedly.  Great.  So we don't need Bunyan to say, very directly:

“Never been in a place like this.”
“A place like what?”
“It’s like the color of my skin makes me a target.”
"I can't imagine."

Maybe it's just a chuckle because we 'get' the irony, but really, we get it without the directness. There's also a line later on which might be the moral of the story, but again, is spoken so directly as if I wasn't going to get the lessons presented ("It's the great project of this country, isn't it? Turning Nature into stuff.").

I really like John Henry's background - a steel driving man, but not by choice.  Instead he's a convict, forced to work on the railroad, and when he thinks by doing it well his sentence will be done without complaint he is instead charged with bogus crimes in order to keep him working (“You’re the best hammer I got. Couldn’t afford to let you go.”).

Bunyan's background I'm less excited about.  I recognize that making him a miner allows for more pollution and poison to be worked into the allegorical tale, but one would think that keeping with his background as a lumberjack and exposing the problems with clearcutting forests could have been equally as worthy of such a tale.

Babe the Blue Ox (Paul Bunyan's faithful friend, for those of you who shamefully don't know the legend) does make an appearance, and I loved how it came about. Yes, I was waiting for it and was going to be disappointed if it wasn't there.  Thank you, Mark!

The adventure gets a little long.  Once we get their individual stories and their teaming up, we don't need the additional obstacles to their goal.  I was thrilled in the beginning, excited at the ending, but bored through about a quarter of the book in the middle. Trying to reach El Boffo in the circus made Paul look stupid to me.  Did he really not yet get that El Boffo was not someone who was going to be reasoned with?

I'm still not sure what to make of 'The Gleam' - Bunyan's supernatural help.  It's a bit of deus ex machina that confuses and weakens our central character (it also rather weakens the lessons if it's all overseen and/or controlled by a supernatural (God) entity. Maybe the hint is in the full title, Bunyan and Henry: Or, the Beautiful Destiny, in which case it IS all pre-determined/destiny, which is frankly less exciting.

Looking for a good book? Mostly fun and exciting, Bunyan and Henry by Mark Cecil will open the door to a slough of new mainstream legend retellings, this is worth reading.  Maybe make this your next book club book.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars

* * * * * *

Bunyan and Henry: Or, the Beautiful Destiny

author: Mark Cecil

publisher: Pantheon

ISBN: 9780593471166

hardcover, 352 pages