Most of us who have read “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” remember that Huck plans to "light out for the Territory" at the end. And then what? Mark Twain's ending practically begs for a sequel, and all these years later Robert Coover finally provides one in his 2017 novel ”Huck Out West.”
It's not just Huck who heads out west, but Jim, Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher as well, each of them crossing paths now and then. Tom and Becky actually get married, but it doesn't last. Tom still has big dreams and grand ambitions and hasn't lost that ability to talk people into almost anything. Becky turns to whoring. Jim finds religion and becomes a cook on a wagon train.

As for Huck, he remains something of an innocent, still uneducated but wiser and a better person than he thinks he is. Now that slavery has been outlawed, his new guilty friendship is with an Indian named Eeteh, ostracized by his tribe yet hated by white settlers as well. The latter, Tom included, want to kill him on sight. Huck remains torn between loyalty to his old pal, Tom, and his affection for Eeteh. He hates to admit that Eeteh may actually be the better friend.

With language that includes words like ruinder, sadfuller and possibleness, Coover's Huck sounds a lot like Twain's, yet somehow Coover himself doesn't sound much like Twain. We are never convinced that this is the sequel Twain would have written, nor is it told in the way Twain would have told it. Still it's quite a story. ( )

Mostly a delight, and also pretty dark. ( )

Sits nicely beside Bergers' Little Big Man and McBrides' The Good Lord Bird. ( )

In Huck Out West author Robert Coover continues the story of Huckleberry Finn by following him on his Western journeys. We learn that Huck has been having adventures, among them was working as a Pony Express rider, hunting buffalo, guiding wagon trains and living with the Lakota Sioux. At times Huckleberry is with his childhood friend, Tom Sawyer. While these characters are much like they were as youngsters with Huck having retained his decency and innocence, the crafty, clever and self-serving Tom Sawyer has lost his charm is now a manipulative and rather untrustworthy scoundrel. Many other characters from the two books about these boys make an appearance as well.

Although these characters are familiar, the author’s purpose seems less in continuing the legend of Huckleberry than in exposing the truth behind how and why the incoming Americans ignored the previous treaties that had been set with the Lakota over the Black Hills. Once gold had been discovered there, the Americans quickly sought to discard the treaties, take control and remove or murder the Lakota. We now know that these depredations eventually ended up in the confrontation at the Little Bighorn in 1876. The book reminded me a great deal of Little Big Man by Thomas Berger, as Huck wanders around and is involved in incidents with the Indians, bandits, immigrants, prospectors and the army. Although not specifically named, there is a long haired general that Huck calls General Hard Ass that shows up a number of times and every time he appears, the news is not good for Huckleberry.

As the drifter Huckleberry Finn continues his search for freedom, Huck Out West serves as both a homage and a sequel to Mark Twain’s original work as well as a satire about the cost of America’s determination to extend it’s borders. I believe that Mark Twain would have enjoyed this book, I know that I certainly did. ( )

I could not engage with this one. After Huck lit out for the territories, he had a bunch of pointless adventures; found out Jim had been sold back into slavery; watched a mass hanging of native Americans where he serendipitously met up with Tom Sawyer again (Tom hasn't changed a bit, except for being less likeable as an adult); worked for Custer (referred to only as "Gen'l Hard Ass") for a while and couldn't stomach his brutality; ran across Ben Rogers who promptly got himself killed; lost another new friend; drove cattle for a while; and contemplated helping a captive girl escape her father, who she said intended to sell her to the Mormons as an "extry wife". And that's all in the first 85 pages or so. Huck's voice doesn't feel quite right, and he's not particularly interesting now that's he's grown up and lost his innocence. In fact, the whole thing was boring me senseless. I quit.
1 star for the cover art.

November 2018 ( )