Product Description
"Watson's voice is an artistic triumph. . .[Bone by Bone] may well come to be regarded as a classic." --San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
In Bone by Bone, Peter Matthiessen speaks in the extraordinary voice of the enigmatic and dangerous E. J. Watson, whom we first saw, obliquely, through the eyes of his early twentieth-century Everglades community in Killing Mister Watson.
This astonishing new novel, calling to account the violence, virulent racism, and destruction of the land that fueled the so-called American Dream, points an accusing finger straight into the burning eyes of Uncle Sam. Here is the bloodied child of the Civil War and Reconstruction who dreams of recovering the family plantation. He becomes the gifted cane planter nearing success on a wilderness river when he gives in fatally to his accumulating demons. Powerfully imagined, prodigiously detailed, Bone by Bone is a literary tour de force as bold and ambitious as Watson himself. "Like a true tragic figure, [Watson] knows and understands; he does not wriggle to save his own skin," said The New York Times. "This is a work of genuine dignity."
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Amazon.com Review
In Bone by Bone, the final chapter of Peter Matthiessen's Everglades trilogy, the man known variously as "Desperado" and "Emperor" Watson finally tells his own story--and a hard, ruthless, and singularly bloody tale it is. Brought up in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War, Watson flees South Carolina after he's tagged for a murder he didn't commit. Bone by Bone follows his exile in the Indian Territories, his arrest for the murder of Belle Star, and his years in Florida, where he struggles to carve a sugar-cane empire out of the Everglades before being gunned down by a howling mob. "There's some that would say that Edgar Watson is a bad man by nature," he muses near the end of his life, but later declares, "I don't believe that men are born with a bad nature." So is Watson's fate nature or nurture? Is he a killer born or a killer made? This question lies at the heart of Matthiessen's tale as well as its precursors, Killing Mister Watson and Lost Man's River. Answering it would mean nothing less than answering the problem of evil itself. In this case, the evil is inextricably twined with the good. Ed Watson loves his wives, a good laugh, and at least some of his children; he also murders and betrays employees and friends, all the while insisting that he "wanted to be an honest and upright citizen all my life." Somehow--and this is only one of Matthiessen's great achievements--the reader believes him. The reader also believes Watson's other defense: his crimes are no different from those of the great robber barons. His uncle, for instance, quotes South Carolina Governor James Hammond: "Sir, what is it that constitutes character, popularity, and power in the United States? Sir, it is property, and that only!" It is for property that Watson destroys himself and all those around him; it is for property that his son's beloved Everglades are hunted, fished, drained, and cleared to the brink of destruction. Bone by Bone is a distinctively American tragedy, as outsized and ambitious as E.J. Watson himself. --Mary Park
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 On a fever trail ( vicam )
Beautiful depiction of natural scenery and a realistic picture of pioneer life in South Florida 100+ years ago. The complexity of Watson's personality was well handled showing him to be a multiple murderer with brief interludes of tenderness toward his wives and children. There were too many unimportant characters introduced who played insignificant roles in the history adding to the unwieldy length of the book. The various violent acts could have been dealt with more quickly without wallowing in the blood and guts of each incident; they all blended together diminishing their impact. One cannot argue with the praise heaped on Mathiessen for his masterful style; it's serious literature for serious readers of which we have too little. But there was a feverish quality to the book which I found disturbing. I felt trapped in an atmosphere of evil emanating from men doing dastardly deeds with an overlay of the worst that nature offers, mosquitoes, snakes, 'gators, heat, dampness, storms. I read it to the end but was relieved when it was over. I'm puzzled by those who think it is a masterpiece. I expected better. I will read Peter Mathiessen again but I had more than enough of Mr. Watson and company who made me want to take a long hot shower.
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Self-Portrait of a Villain ( jamhtchcck )
"Bone by Bone" is the final instalment of Peter Matthiessen's "Watson Trilogy". This ambitious series of novels aimed to tell the story of a man's life as seen through the eyes of his contemporaries ("Killing Mr Watson"), the same man's life as seen by posterity ("Lost man's River") and finally his life as seen by the man himself. In "Bone by Bone" Edgar Watson tells the story of his own life, starting with his childhood in South Carolina during and after the Civil War, and ending with his killing by a mob in Southern Florida in 1910.
The early parts of this novel are probably the best, particularly the descriptions of Watson's miserable childhood at the hands of his brutal, drunken father Elijah ("Ring-Eye Lige"). Elijah Watson (who himself played a less than glorious part in the war) stands as a symbol of the defeated post-bellum South -its disillusionment, its senseless racist violence, its desperate attempts to justify itself through the myth of the "Great Lost Cause". The teenage Edgar, hard working and determined, attempts to rise above the poverty and degradation into which his once-proud family have fallen, but his attempts are doomed when he is falsely accused of the murder of Selden Tilghman, a relative who has angered local opinion by his liberal, anti-slavery sentiments, and is forced to flee his home state.
The novel proceeds to relate Watson's life as seen through his own eyes. The rest of his life is mostly spent in Florida, with brief spells in Oklahoma and Arkansas. In time, Watson rises out of poverty to become a prosperous sugar-cane planter in the Everglades, but at the same time his character deteriorates, until by the end of his life he has become as violent and ruthless as his father, ready to exploit, bully, threaten or even murder those who stand in his way and to sacrifice or alienate his family and friends in pursuit of his ambitions.
"Bone by Bone" is better than its predecessor in the trilogy, "Lost Man's River", the dull story of Watson's son Lucius and his attempts to find out the truth about his father's legacy. Neither of the two later books, however, are as good as the first volume, "Killing Mr Watson", which tells Watson's story through the eyes of a number of those who knew him using a "multiple narrator" technique. This technique enables Mr Matthiessen to maintain an intriguing ambiguity. There is no authoritative author's voice to tell us whether Watson is good or evil or a mixture of the two, or whether his killing was bloody murder or a justified act of self-defence. The fascination of the book is that the reader must work this out for himself or herself, and different readers will (I suspect) come to different conclusions.
In "Bone by Bone" we finally get to hear the authoritative version of Watson's life- his own- and the ambiguity is lost. In the early part of the book, Watson may come across as a man more sinned against than sinning, but by the end any sympathy we may have had for him has been lost as we realise that his neighbours' suspicions of him were, by and large, justified. (This revelation will come as no surprise to those who have read "Lost Man's River"). The first-person narrative means that Watson dominates this book to an excessive extent; selfish and self-obsessed, he takes little interest in those around him, except insofar as they can be useful to him or stand in his way. The other people in the story do not therefore emerge as characters in their own right as they did in "Killing Mr Watson", and we have no voice to counterbalance Watson's own. The book works as a powerfully-written character-study of a villainous character, but its lack of any sympathetic figure to balance its central villain meant that I did not find it a very enjoyable read.
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 Nature writing transmuted to fiction ( mesibley )
Reading this book is an ambitious undertaking. Matthiessen's books appeal to the serious reader. His father, Elijah Watson, challenged a hero, General Butler, to a duel. Edgar Watson left Elijah Watson's household for two years. He stayed at the old Tilghman place. Returning he found out that his father had led others to believe that he had shot a man. Edgar and the women moved south. In March 1871 they crossed into Florida. They had traveled from North Carolina to Georgia and into Florida. They went to the Myers plantation which Aunt Tabitha inherited. His mother's plea for refuge had been granted. Edgar was disliked by the overseer, Woodson Tolen. He was from the Flint River country in Georgia. Edgar went to work on another plantation because he made Woodson Tolen angry. Then Old Man Woodson Tolen went back to Georgia and tensions eased. Edgar married Miss Charlie Collins when she turned fifteen. Ten months later she died. Their child's name was not registered in Lake City. He was referred to as Son Born. Charlie's parents took him to raise. Eight years later Edgar went to fetch him. Mr. and Mrs. Curry Collins called him Elton, but now Edgar called him Robert or Rob for short. Edgar, accused of killings he did not commit, went with Rob and his second wife, Mandy, to the Oklahoma territory. In the territory Edgar ran into the Younger clan and Belle Starr. Belle Starr's son claimed he tried to bribe his way out of a scrape. Watson was put on trial for Starr's murder. He was released. The charge was not proved. The federal court held there was insufficient evidence to indict him. Next Edgar leased a farm in Crawford County, Arkansas. By that time Rob was eleven and the other children, Carrie and Edward, toddlers. Also there was a new baby and the family was in debt. In jail for a month, Edgar had to plant later. They did not celebrate Christmas. They were in hibernation trying to ride out the famine. Watson was arrested for horse theft and Mandy and the children moved with kind people to the Choctaw Nation. When he went out on the chain gang he managed to escape, but could not get word to Mandy and his family. He went off with Frank Reese and they parted near Memphis. Now he was known as Jack Watson. He rode over the Smokies into the Carolinas. He sought his father Elijah Watson near Edgefield Court House. In 1878 Elijah Watson and William Coulter were indicted for murder. In October 1879 there was a finding of not guilty. Then he had a work gang job, prison guard. Next he, Elijah, became a grave digger. Edgar realized he no longer cared whether he lived or died. He went to Florida and changed his name to E. Jack Watson. He visited his sister Minny and her husband Billy Collins. He learned that he was wanted in Arkansas. Watson traveled west and hired out as a gunslinger. He killed a man and almost fell into the hands of lynch mob. From Arcadia, Florida he went south to Ten Thousand Islands. He started farming at Chatham Bend. His family joined him. They led a rough mosquito-ridden life. The Watson Place was famous because it was the only place between Fort Myers and Key West that was painted. In 1898, a dry year, a huge alligator made its home in the Chatham River. Everyone but Rob moved to Fort Myers when Mandy was sick. The story continues in this fashion. Les Cox was one of the last varmints, bully boys, encountered by Edgar Watson. Finally Watson meets his merited end. I honor the author's accomplishment. The book is strong and fine, although I preferred KILLING MR. WATSON.
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 Great additon to the collection ( beachmouse )
If you are south Florida history buff you won't want to miss this latest Matthiessen offering.
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A work of Art ( cathm )
Peter Mattiessen would have to be one of your greatest living writers. The life of Mr EJ Watson is a metaphor for the modern American way of life, all its light and darkness, good and bad.
I've never been to America, but these book have given me such an insight into its way of life, and the way it conducts itself in the greater word.
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