Mark Cecil has deftly reframed the hallowed figures of Paul Bunyan and John Henry in this book. The legendary men are forced to go toe to toe with the capitalistic greed of an expanding America. They remain heroes in this retelling but their foes now include amorphous ideals as well as bad guys.
“Whatever you do now, you must be extremely careful,” said Niebuhr. “There are enormous fortunes at stake. Lives and reputations, too. One might say the future itself is on the line. … In the race for knowledge, many have been silenced. Eyes are all around. Do you understand?” ~Pg. 63
Paul Bunyan works a backbreaking job as a miner in Lump Town but can never quite get ahead. He toils each day with the mine owner’s promise that any worker who makes it ten years will earn a gold bar and can choose a new home from his shiny catalog. But his beloved wife Lucette has contracted the dreaded silver dark disease. Paul must leave Lump Town, and risk his promised pension, to find a cure for her.
Along the way, he meets John Henry, a wanted man determined to escape with his family to a country where they can truly be free. A wrongly convicted Black man, he was put on the chain gang where he drove spikes along new railroad. His speed and strength were renowned, so much so that when he sentence was nearing its end, the warden fabricated a reason for the judge to extend his sentence — he was too valuable to the railroad expansion project. He escaped his chains and is now running for his life.
Both men have been beaten down by life and yet have found hope and something to fight for. Their unlikely adventures require each to trust the other, consider unusual possibilities, and be brave in the face of monsters real and imagined.
Here in John Henry’s apartment, Bunyan suddenly noticed there were books everywhere. Books on the floor, in the corners, by the walls, in the nooks, and piled high behind Polly. For a moment it seemed as if John Henry’s small apartment were made out of books. It occured to Bunyan that is John Henry was to be considered ‘armed and very dangerous,’ as the Wanted poster stated, then the pen must be mightier than the sword. ~Pg. 123
Mark Cecil deliberately uses the steps of Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey to provide the framework for his retelling. Each beat of Campbell’s monomyth outline is represented in Bunyan and Henry, underscoring the mythological nature of the story. Their challenges mirror the labors of hercules and an altered tale of Ariadne and the minotaur introduces Bunyan’s blue ox.
By using the paintbrush of magical realism but hinting at real people and places (The City of Brotherly Love, The Windy City, The Great White North), Cecil makes this fantastical tale both distant and plausible.
As always, though, the truth of a myth is less about the story and more about how we see ourselves in it.
My thanks to Pantheon Books for the review copy.
Publisher: Pantheon (March 26, 2024)
Language: English
Hardcover: 352 pages
ISBN-10: 0593471164