Cuyahoga

August 3, 2020
Beatty’s inspired debut is an American tall tale in the 19th-century oral tradition. Living legend Big Son has wrestled forests and rivers into submission. But in Ohio City in 1837, he meets his greatest challenge to date when his true love, Cloe Inches, refuses to be his bride until he proves himself as a provider. He finds work building a bridge across the Cuyahoga River that will connect Cleveland with its rival, Ohio City. But after the bridge collapses, so, too, do Big Son’s fortunes. It is up to his brother, Medium Son, called Meed, to restore his reputation by creating an almanac of Big Son’s legendary feats. Meed, however, covets Cloe and is secretly jealous of the attention his older brother receives. Throw in a dandyish rival for Cloe’s affection and a gunpowder-toting demonstrator, and the stage is set for the biggest Big Son tale of all time. Narrated by Meed in a colloquial voice (about Big: “I do believe I could make a decent merchant for him as a foremost spirit of the times”), Beatty’s novel has echoes of Matthew Sharpe’s Jamestown and Hugh Nissenson’s The Tree of Life, employing language that thrusts the reader fully into the tumult of life on the American frontier. Like Big Son himself, this novel is an American original.

Narrator Feodor Chin embraces the satirical world of this debut novel with a whimsical tone, an engaged style, and a quick cadence that suits the nineteenth-century fable. He does a fine performance of the sounds in this audiobook--from the thwack of an axe to the sharp sound of gunshots and the splashes of swimming in Lake Erie. Befitting this satire of the tall tale, everything in this audiobook is outsized. The plot rotates around the brothers Son--Big Son, the author of fabulous feats, and Medium (called "Meed"), the narrator, who tells of his mythic sibling's exploits and records them in an almanac. The listener is treated to all the hijinks--from a boat race to a bridge burning and a prodigious brawl. A.D.M. � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine