Turpentine

June 11, 2007
This highly episodic picaresque manages to outlast a generic, disorganized plot to emerge as an entertaining romp through the American 1870s. For the most part, Warren's debut follows the youthful adventures of Edward Turrentine Bayard III, who has left his upper-class Connecticut family and headed to frontier Nebraska for his health. In short order, he becomes a buffalo skinner, learns to ride and shoot, and is smitten by the beautiful and poetic Lill Martine. She has other ideas, and Ned, crestfallen but undaunted in his devotion, takes a job offer from a paleontologist back East. There, he meets Phaegin, an attractive, streetwise dance hall girl, and more or less adopts a juvenile delinquent named Curly. Curly's mischief soon has the trio accused of anarchy, theft and murder, and they flee across the continent for their lives. A series of improbable coincidences and misadventures follow, involving wealthy entrepreneurs, Mormons, Indians and a variety of rustic frontier types. There's no shortage of sudden death and grim gore, all of which remains comically on the surface. Characters come and go, often violently. But astonishingly, the sweetness of the story keeps it afloat.

September 1, 2007
First novelist Warren ventures into literary Larry McMurtry country with an episodic tale of coincidences that is not very funny, not very sad (although it is meant to be heartbreaking), and not very believable. Sarcastically known as "Turpentine" to his pals in Nebraska, young Ned proves to be a latter-day Candide in 1870s Americathis best of all possible worlds. In the course of the novel, Ned falls in with (or afoul of) homosexual buffalo hunters, an unscrupulous college professor, crooked lawyers, sanctimonious pioneers, and a relentless Pinkerton agent. He sets his own tragicomedy in motion by rescuing an orphan boy from a coal minea good deed that is punished by the loss of every thing or person that was ever precious to him. A fugitive from a crime he didn't commit, Ned suffers misery after misery until, after an amazing coincidence, everything works out all right in the end. Readers seeking an informative novel about the pioneer West, or a good story, will be disappointed on both counts. Not a necessary purchase.Ken St. Andre, Phoenix P.L.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2007
This is the first novel by Warren, a painter and furniture maker. It is a sweeping saga of the western frontier in the 1870s, filled with colorful characters, stark and sometimes vibrant images, and violent but sometimes absurd situations. At the center of the narrative is Edward Turrentine Bayard III (Turpentine). As a young, tubercular easterner, he is sent to a Nebraska sanitarium to heal his lungs. Instead, through a series of mishaps and coincidences, he is launched on a cross-country odyssey. On his travels he encounters a cigar maker, a young coal miner, and lesser characters, some of whom seem derived from central casting. Turpentine is certainly an endearing literary creation, combining the wide-eyed innocence and crafty survivors instincts of a Huck Finn. He and his companions witness labor strife, blood-and-guts buffalo hunts, and a host of travails and sometimes barely credible adventures. Although her story line occasionally gets jumbled and confusing, Warren knows how to spin a tale. There is considerable excitement, humor, and occasionally pathos in this enjoyable debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)