The Wild Girl: The Notebooks of Ned Giles, 1932

Over all it's a good book. Kinda a slow read or it has seemed to me to be.

I wanted so much to like this book. Reading it on the heels of McMurtry's classic western, however, might have been asking too much of any book from this genre. This is a reprint with a new publisher of "The Wild Girl." Evidently, the editors didn't agree with some of the reviewers of the first printing, who criticized all the "claptrap" prefacing the narrative and afterward. The author repeatedly reminds the reader that this is a work of fiction, but then proceeds to labor to make it appear to be a work of non-fiction. The blurb on the back cover only furthers this misperception. The quotes of historians of the Apaches are superfluous and the author seems bent on pleasing those whose politically-correct mindset would expect him to valorize American Indians to the point of rationalizing even the Apaches' brutal excesses. This is quite off-putting but if you can look past all the extraneous material, the narrative will seize your interest and sustain it. In fairness, the book appears to be well-researched and just to alleviate your doubts the author includes a bibliography of sources cited. Still, this book could have been better with proper editing. While you will no doubt enjoy the plot development, you'll find its shifting narration annoying and unnecessary. The entire book should be told 3rd POV but instead tries to let us see events from the POV of different characters. It's not very convincing when we consider that the main protagonist, a 17 year-old named Ned Giles, could hardly have engaged in some of the historically reflective commentary attributed to him. How can one be so dispassionate when writing in the midst of so much turmoil, suspense, and outright terror? I thoroughly enjoyed the way the author attended to detailed descriptions of the terrain, providing much local color. He well develops the relationship between Giles and one of the Indians. The dialogue, or banter, is at times forced and sounds more like something contemporary amateur historians might say rather than historical figures. This novel does, however, in the end provide more than a glimpse into the bronco Apaches, as they were called, and their race relations with both the Americans and Mexicans. On that basis, and the strength of the narrative flow, I recommend it.

I loved this book. Simply loved it. The weaving of historical fact and fiction--the emotional heart that drives the story. The writing itself.

In 1999, elderly photographer Ned Giles explains one of his photographs to a man attending a New York showing of Giles's photos. The image is of a young Apache girl in a Mexican jail. The girl, Giles says, was called "the wild girl," and was found naked and starving in Mexico's Sierra Madre. The man purchases the photograph, leaving Giles to remember the girl's story, and his own, in detail. The tale, relayed by journal entries, flashbacks, and from the point of view of several characters, is set in 1932 and begins with the girl running desperately through the arroyo below the Sierra Madre while the cougar hunter Billy Flowers chases her. Seventeen-year-old Ned Giles joins a large expedition as a photojournalist to Mexico to retrieve a kidnapped boy from the Apaches. Ned makes friends with wealthy and outspokenly gay Tolley, cultural anthropologist Margaret, and his own young assistant, Jesus. Meanwhile, Flowers chases the Apache girl again, as she has escaped. The girl had been with her family, in a raid led by her crazy brother-in-law, Indio Juan, when they kidnapped the rich rancher's little boy. She remembers the kidnapping as she hides in a cave from Flowers. When Flowers finally catches the wild girl, he has no idea what to do with her, and so he takes her to the nearby town jail. In the tiny village of Bavispe, Sonora, Ned encounters the shocking sight of the Apache girl tied to a post in front of the jail. He arranges to bathe and clothe her. Along with his friends, he hatches a plan that should benefit everyone, including the girl and the kidnapped boy --- trade the girl for the kidnapped boy. A small band consisting of Ned, the girl, an English butler, Tolley, Margaret, Jesus, and two Indian scouts set off to accomplish the mission. The Apaches soon capture them, and Ned finds himself in "...another world, a world with its own sun and moon, and its own separate race of man" --- and in imminent mortal danger. As a tribute to Jim Fergus's talents as a storyteller, I literally could not put down this novel, staying up until nearly dawn to finish it. The characters are full-blooded and alive; the adventure unfolds at a breathless pace and the descriptions are lyrical. As I watched Ned Giles leave chilly Chicago to set off on his adventure, my mind movie changed from black and white to warm Technicolor. The story felt so real that I actually checked (several times!) to be sure that the word "novel" hadn't somehow changed to "nonfiction" on the jacket flap. This is one of the best books I've read in years, and a story that will remain with me. Very highly recommended. --- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon

Jim Fergus weaves an enduring tale of Ned Giles' trials and tribulations growing up in an unknown corner of the United States. Set during the Great Depression, Giles sets off on an adventure to free a young white boy from the bronco Apaches. Fergus is masterful in entertwining a great adventure with the personal growth of Giles as he struggles to learn that life is seldom black-and-white. When Giles looks back over the decades at his time in the southwest, it's with the acknowledgement that all of the decisions that we make send us down a path in life that is uniquely our own. Fergus tells his story with the same detached, honest assessment as Giles does when he's hiding behind his camera, capturing the lives of the bronco Apaches.