Set in Texas in 1868, The Madstone is a gritty journey tale, a mystery, and a tender story of young love by Elizabeth Crook (The Which Way Tree). Benjamin Shreve writes to four-year-old Tot in a letter that narrates their harrowing 10-day trek; he plans for it to be given to the boy when he is 19. "Otherwise you might tinker too much in your mind about how things might of been different, when you won't even know how they actually was," he explains.
Nineteen-year-old Benjamin, a small-town carpenter, awaits the hoped-for return of his long-missing sister. When a traveler called Dickie, who has missed his stagecoach, entreats Benjamin to drive him to the next town, the boy's chivalry upends a quiet life. They find the coach surrounded by two motley crews of highway robbers, who are threatening passengers Nell, "undoubtedly in a family way," and young Tot. Benjamin writes, "we could not forsake a woman and child to their mercy," chronicling his unwitting commitment to shepherding Nell and Tot's flight from a violent family feud, on safe passage to New Orleans. Rattlesnake-infested prairies, Dickie's possibly cursed gemstone, reluctant mules, Nell's brutal brothers-in-law, and her impending childbirth propel the story, but no peril dissuades Benjamin's growing love for the mother and son.
A cast of quirky characters includes a "Negro Seminoll," a vital ally and a reminder of the prejudices of the post-Civil War South. Fast-paced and grisly, with notes of surrealism and humor, The Madstone is at its heart a lyrical testament to unselfish virtue. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.