American legends John Henry (the steel driving man) and Paul Bunyan (the giant lumberjack) are reimagined and given new backstories in this modern fable by Mark Cecil.

Paul Bunyan is a miner in the run-down, dirty Lump Town. He's stuck in the job with no way to leave and no way to advance. The town is tightly controlled by the mogul El Boffo. When Paul's wife, Lucette, gets sick from the toxic Lump that's being mined, Paul sets out to meet with El Boffo and bring it to his attention.

But people don't just meet with El Boffo whenever they want and Paul learns that El Boffo runs a fighting ring and the winner might have a chance to meet the man who owns the mine. Paul's a big, young man, but he's a gentle giant - he's never been in a fight in his life. With the help of a good corner man and a supernatural 'gleam' that lights up in front of Paul, directing him with where to go or what to do, Paul quickly climbs the winner circle in the fighting ring, but his final battle is against El Boffo's champion, a former steel-driving man named John Henry.

John is a man on the run, having left is forced steel-driving days and always watchful for the F.O.L. (Fraternal Order of Liberty - a thinly disguised K.K.K. organization). The pair find they are evenly matched and form a bond that gets them out of the ring and through a number of escapades.

I really enjoyed this book, though my enjoyment tempered some the more I went through it.

Despite living in Minnesota (where the statue of Paul Bunyan can often be found on tourism marketing) I can honestly say I haven't thought of Paul Bunyan or his legend in decades but just seeing this book brought about a certain amount of excitement. I do often enjoy reading retellings and mash-ups of classic myths, legends, and stories and this stands out as being quite unique. I suspect that as this gains some traction we'll see more of these kinds of stories.

Right from the start author Mark Cecil sets the tone of high allegory. Names like Lump Town and El Boffo put us in the right frame of mind. Sometimes, though, he goes a little overboard, hitting us over the head as if the reader isn't going to get it. For instance, Bunyan and Henry are sitting in an all-Black tavern, with lookouts watching for signs of the F.O.L. and repeatedly people come up to Henry and ask if he's okay and if the white guy at the table can be trusted. Repeatedly. Great. So we don't need Bunyan to say, very directly:

“Never been in a place like this.”
“A place like what?”
“It’s like the color of my skin makes me a target.”
"I can't imagine."

Maybe it's just a chuckle because we 'get' the irony, but really, we get it without the directness. There's also a line later on which might be the moral of the story, but again, is spoken so directly as if I wasn't going to get the lessons presented ("It's the great project of this country, isn't it? Turning Nature into stuff.").

I really like John Henry's background - a steel driving man, but not by choice. Instead he's a convict, forced to work on the railroad, and when he thinks by doing it well his sentence will be done without complaint he is instead charged with bogus crimes in order to keep him working (“You’re the best hammer I got. Couldn’t afford to let you go.”).

Bunyan's background I'm less excited about. I recognize that making him a miner allows for more pollution and poison to be worked into the allegorical tale, but one would think that keeping with his background as a lumberjack and exposing the problems with clearcutting forests could have been equally as worthy of such a tale.

Babe the Blue Ox (Paul Bunyan's faithful friend, for those of you who shamefully don't know the legend) does make an appearance, and I loved how it came about. Yes, I was waiting for it and was going to be disappointed if it wasn't there. Thank you, Mark!

The adventure gets a little long. Once we get their individual stories and their teaming up, we don't need the additional obstacles to their goal. I was thrilled in the beginning, excited at the ending, but bored through about a quarter of the book in the middle. Trying to reach El Boffo in the circus made Paul look stupid to me. Did he really not yet get that El Boffo was not someone who was going to be reasoned with?

I'm still not sure what to make of 'The Gleam' - Bunyan's supernatural help. It's a bit of deus ex machina that confuses and weakens our central character (it also rather weakens the lessons if it's all overseen and/or controlled by a supernatural (God) entity. Maybe the hint is in the full title, Bunyan and Henry: Or, the Beautiful Destiny, in which case it IS all pre-determined/destiny, which is frankly less exciting.

Looking for a good book? Mostly fun and exciting, Bunyan and Henry by Mark Cecil will open the door to a slough of new mainstream legend retellings, this is worth reading. Maybe make this your next book club book.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Do you remember the tall tales that you heard and read as a child that drew you in and wrapped themselves in your dreams? The mythic hero, the noble quest, the vivid side characters? This is that for all ages. I disappeared into this book, and read late into the night to find out what came next for Paul Bunyan. This will be a fun one for me to recommend and chat with patrons about.

My thanks for finding this gift of a book are due to Matthew Quick’s inviting Substack interview with its author, Mark Cecil. I highly recommend finding that post as a wonderful addendum to this creative book. Thanks also to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for allowing access to a digital ARC.

A delightful mashup of westerns, sci fi, fantasy, and historical fiction. The language Cecil has created - El Boffo, Lump Town, Wondertorium, and Simulorb, among other playful linguistic gymnastics - remind me (as odd as this comparison may be) of Salman Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories": another lively, wonderfully inventive comic take on historic characters and their stories.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, for an advance copy of this novel about America in another time and place, where fold heroes strode the Earth, fighting the good fight, helping those who needed it, living an American Dream that was uniquely their own.

I have always been a fan of folk heroes. Probably for the same reason why I like super heroes. One of my favorite kinds of comic stories, rare when I first started reading comics, fairly common now where when heroes teamed up. They always started with a fight, followed by and understanding, than a team-up and woe be to those who stood in their way. Bunyan and Henry; Or, the Beautiful Destiny would probably be the first big team-up in folk hero history. Paul Bunyan with his axe, John Henry with his fire and his mighty hammer. Debut author Mark Cecil has created a story as big as these men, full of dream creatures, mad cattle, wasting disease, Capitalism run amuck, and of course friendship, family, and love.

Paul Bunyan has been beat by life, but thinks he might be finally getting ahead. At an early age he lost his father and use of his foot due to a cattle stampede. His mother is in debtor's prison, and Bunyan is working in the industrial town of Lump City, mining for the new wonder material Lump. On the day that he thinks his luck has changed Bunyan finds his dreams are lies, and his wife has come down with a sickness that will soon kill her. Only El Boffo the owner and financier behind Lump might be able to cure her, so Bunyan goes to the Windy City to find El Boffo. There he crosses paths and a few rights and lefts with John Henry, a man on the run for fleeing imprisonment in the South building train lines for El Boffo. Henry needs passage to the Great White North, and helps Bunyan on his quest. A quest that is both magical, and dogged by the capitalist dreams of America, and even these two heroes might not stand a chance.

There is a lot more to this book, and I don't want to ruin this for readers. What a big story, full of great writing, characters and even better huge ideas. A mix of magical realism, buddy picture, a love story, an attack on what American loves most, money and racism, a much more. I can not get over that this is a first novel. Cecil has such an assured hand in writing, and even the craziest things make sense in the novel. In addition there are lines that will make the hardest of readers go wow, and or sniffle a little. Especially when Henry has to leave his son, with Henry's fate unknown the words they say to each other really touched me. The characters are all really good, especially John Henry. The way he tells his tale, the pain, the loss, even his loss of innocence is just amazing. A book that seemed so much larger than it was, and yet I wish the story went on.

Mark Cecil is not only a great writer, but has a great imagination. The skill to craft this, so close to what we know, and yet different enough to make it seem fresh. A fantastic debut, and one that makes me look very forward to more books by Mark Cecil.

This was a great overall feel to the reimagining of a classic tall tales, it uses the original tale into something unique. The story worked well overall and I was enjoying the overall concept. The characters felt like they were supposed to and I enjoyed that this dealt with sides of the American Dream.