News of the World by Paulette Jiles

Paulette Jiles' impressive novel, News of the World, was a 2016 National Book Award finalist and I can see why. Set in 1870 in North Texas, Jiles’ precise prose captivated me with her tale of emotional endurance and human connection. Captain Jefferson Kidd of Georgia is a veteran of two wars. He travels town to town to read the news of the world to assembled crowds. It is a meager living, but in the aftermath of the Civil War, the Captain lost both his print shop and his faith in humanity.  He has witnessed both the noble and savage impulses of his fellow human beings and he now hopes, “If people had true knowledge of the world perhaps they would not take up arms and so perhaps he could be an aggregator of information from distant places and then the world would be a more peaceful place."

In Wichita Falls, Texas,  he is offered a fifty-dollar gold piece to return a ten-year-old girl to her relatives 400 miles south in San Antonio. The Kiowa tribe raised the girl, named Johanna Leonberger, after they murdered her parents and sister. She now embodies the culture and language of the tribe. Yet four years later, to the dismay of her adopted Kiowa mother, the tribe returns Johanna to the US Army. She has been abandoned twice now and has learned to behave with courage and resiliency. Jiles bases this piece of the story on first hand accounts of children captured and raised by Native American tribes. She specifically notes Scott Zesch’s book, Captured.

The Captain and Johanna embark on a grueling and emotional journey. They initially view each other with alarm and caution. Captain Kidd is no child psychologist, but he is a kind and honest man who seeks to comprehend this young girl whose only language is Kiowa. As they travel together, the weary old man and the wary young girl endure outlaws, hostile tribes, and a corrupt Reconstructionist government. And they begin to communicate and appreciate one another. Toward the end of the novel Jiles writes, “The Captain never did understand what had caused such a total change in a little girl from a German household and adopted into a Kiowa one. In a mere four years she completely forgot her birth language and her parents, her people, her religion, her alphabet. She forgot how to use a knife and a fork and how to sing in European scales. And once she was returned to her own people, nothing came back. She remained at heart a Kiowa to the end of her days.”

Though Captain Kidd may not understand Johanna, he accepts her and attempts to put himself in her shoes. Johanna refuses to be “civilized” into the customs and habits of the white world, though on occasion acquiesces in deference to the Captain. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say it is gratifying. Given our country’s current callousness and cruelty toward those who are different, I thoroughly enjoyed being with Captain Jefferson Kidd. Though he could have taken  advantage of the anarchy and chaos around him, he lived his days with compassion, decency, and honor.