As the Civil War nears its end, fiddler Simon Boudlin is conscripted into the Confederate Army, weeks before its defeat. While providing music at an officers' dinner, Simon meets Doris Dillon and falls instantly in love with the young Irish woman indentured as a governess. Paulette Jiles's novel Simon the Fiddler traces the musician's winding journey around postwar Texas and his efforts to earn both his fortune and Miss Dillon's heart.
Jiles (News of the World) follows Simon and his fellow musicians through scrappy garrison towns, down to the Gulf Coast and eventually to San Antonio, where Doris lives. The narrative paints a layered portrait of Texas in the 1860s: a rough-edged, untamed land full of ex-soldiers, Southern landowners, Tejanos with deep roots in the land and immigrants from many countries. The gruff but sincere friendships among Simon and his colleagues are one of the book's great strengths; another lies in Jiles's spare but lyrical writing, which brings the natural beauty of the state to life. Beyond grimy saloons and barroom brawls, Simon finds the Nueces River "like silk and trembling with star reflections," and the city of San Antonio "tucked into the knees of the hills, a layer of mauve woodsmoke sliding overhead." Though he struggles against poverty, hardship, disease and capricious military law, Simon is a determined dreamer who loves his music above all. Readers who relish a quixotic hero's quest or stories set on the frontier will find much to enjoy in his adventures. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams