American Copper

September 28, 2015
Ray’s elegiac debut novel, set in 1923, follows poet Evelynne Lowry as she tries to shrug off the influence of her brutal, possessive copper baron father, Josef Lowry, by accompanying her brother, Tomas, a veteran of World War I, to a job working on the railroad in northern Montana. But when an accident forces her to return to her father’s home in Butte, Evelynne’s solitary existence is challenged by two different men. William Black Kettle, whose great-great-grandfather was a Cheyenne peace chief killed at the Sand Creek Massacre, is a rodeo roper whose grace and long black hair attract Evelynne. Suitor number two, Zion, is a giant of a man hired to break in her new horse. Zion’s quiet strength is intoxicating to Evelynne, but he quits her, while William returns to the rodeo circuit and begins a correspondence with Evelynne, who risks her father’s wrath in order to be with him. Ray has written a novel about Montana in the first three decades of the 20th century, caught between old and new ways. The story is melodramatic, with Josef resembling a villain out of a silent movie, and the characters frustratingly drift in and out of the story, which ends on an anticlimactic note many readers may find unsatisfying. Agent: Emily Forland, Brandt & Hochman Literary.

Starred review from September 1, 2015
Poet and short story writer Ray debuts as a novelist with a gripping epic of the Montana frontier. Son of a poor immigrant Czech, Josef Lowry raged with a "hunger in him to break the world," but what he fractures is his children and all that's worthy within himself. Montana's copper brought riches and power to Lowry, who was known as the Baron. Tomas and Evelynne, his children, are property: guarded, directed, dominated. First meditating on the Sand Creek Massacre as emblematic of white-Cheyenne racial tension, the heart of the story begins when, home safe from World War I, Tomas dies in an accident. Evelynne turns recluse, Emily Dickinson-like, silent but for published poetry. Then two very different men come into her life. Zion is a sharecropper's son and rodeo rider with a heart-ripping history of hardship. William Black Kettle is a Catholic-educated Cheyenne straddling Native American and white cultures. The prose is elegant, precise, and observant, as when Zion notes there are "only two races of men...[d]ecent and unprincipled." Ray's story travels from the Tongue River in Cheyenne country to scabby little towns marring the vast prairie and then high up to the Continental Divide. With the Evelynne-Zion-William triangle of desire and despair, Ray casts an unsparing eye on the brutal racism of the American frontier and the dark hubris that made the settlement of the West both productive and destructive. Thematically, Ray fuses tragedy into rebirth, covering a timeline of nearly four decades in a narrative as natural, pure, and clear as water flowing from a snow-covered peak. Devotees of the genre will find Ray's lyric, often poetic saga to be equal to McCarthy's Border Trilogy and Harrison's Legends of the Fall.

COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2015

Poet and short story writer Ray's (American Masculine) beautifully told first novel follows three intertwining lives in early 20th-century Montana. Spanning the years between the late 1800s and 1930s, his measured storytelling revolves around Evelynne Lowry, daughter of a controlling copper baron; Zion, a huge man who gentles horses and wrestles steers; and William Black Kettle, descendent of Cheyenne peace chiefs. In profiling these protagonists, the narrative traces Western expansionism and the scourge of racism inherent in that growth, but the book is about how people are connected to one another, to the past, and to the land on which they live. VERDICT Ray's poetic sensibility shows in his careful prose; its spare style may recall Jim Harrison's Legends of the Fall, while the range of history covered is similar to that of Shannon Burke's Into the Savage Country. A Western epic with appeal for literary readers, this seems likely to become a classic Montana read.--Melanie Kindrachuk, Stratford P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2015
The beautiful butterfly Lycaena phlaes gives its common name to Ray's novel set in early-twentieth-century Montana that braids three separate lives into one episodic narrative. First introduced is Evelynne Lowry, sole daughter of Josef Lowry (aka the Baron of Copper). From a timid girl fearful of her overprotective father and feeling undeserving of loveat one point entering a brief phase of reclusiveness a la Emily DickinsonEvelynne blossoms into an assured wife, mother, and published poet. Next is Zion, a horse-breaking, steer-wrestling, bar-brawling man of few words. Last is William Black Kettle of the Cheyenne tribe, grandson of peace chief Black Kettle. He ropes steers at rodeos, performing alongside his closest friend, Raymond Killsnight. Like Evelynne, William is also an eloquent writer and admirer of the English language. Evelynne, Zion, and William all lose loved ones in tragic circumstances, and each possesses a deep connection to horses. American Copper is a complex tale of discrimination, hostility, bloodshed, and romance. Sensuous imagery abounds in this novel's vividly described landscape of the American West.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)