Yellow Earth

by John Sayles

In Yellow Earth, the site of Three Nations reservations on the banks of the Missouri River in North Dakota, Sayles introduces us to Harleigh Killdeer, chairman of the Tribal Business Council. “An activist in his way, a product of the Casino Era,” Kildeer, who is contracted by oil firm Case and Crosby, spearheads the new Three Nations Petroleum Company.

What follows, with characteristic lyrical dexterity, insight, and wit, introduces us to a memorable cast of characters, weaving together narratives of competing worlds through masterful storytelling.

Set shortly before Standing Rock would become a symbol of historic proportions of the brutal confrontation between native resistance and the forces of big business and law enforcement, the fate of Yellow Earth serves as a parable for our times.

Genres: Fiction, Environment

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 7, 2020

About the author

John Thomas Sayles is an independent film director, screenwriter, novelist and short story writer who frequently plays small roles in his own and other indie films.

Reviews

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diving into a John Sayles novel is just that—the reader takes a swan dive, unable to know ahead of time how deep the water is, what might be swimming around in it, or even where one will be. Yellow Earth's "pool" is oil-digging (specifically fracking) country on a state-sized Three Nations Indian reservation in North Dakota, and you quickly realize one swan dive will not suffice because locales jump from place to place, all full of crowds of people with names and backgrounds and friends and acquaintances who all seem to know one another, along with long histories about which the reader knows nothing.

I've known John Sayles since college, and reading this book reminds me of the parties that he and his partner, Maggie, used to host in "the early days" in Hoboken, NJ. I was a somewhat tangential part of their crowd because I'd been in John's first two movies and hung out with him a lot, but I knew hardly anybody when I dove into these parties. And for a shy person, I had a terrific time. I liked John and it turned out I liked people he liked. And reading this book reminded me that that's all that's required to enjoy one of his books. You can get overwhelmed thinking you have to learn everybody's name (and, forget it, you won't). And if you decide to feel like an outsider because you don't know all the background history of people who seem to know each other so well, you can do that. But it's much more interesting to dive for the experience—dive/read as a curious explorer. Just meet everyone. See who you like. And after a while, like hanging out with people who speak their own language, you pick it up.

It took me about a hundred pages to hear the music. Or maybe the writing changed for a bit in the second section, titled "Stimulation," which is just that. The opening history of beaver murders had me almost screaming with anguish, and this was followed by a description of oil drilling, a cascade of words whose meaning didn't matter so much as their symphonic effect and I found myself swept away by the rhythms, internal rhyming, and alliteration, none of which was self-conscious, just natural poetry that could sweep an audience away (if you are an audiobook listener, this stuff is for you).

Subsequently, I sometimes got lost in the ever-jumping scenes, each so fully fleshed out that they become their own little worlds with their own language, forming a jigsaw puzzle that gradually reveals an epic picture (rather than linear story with a protagonist, etc.) about greed, exploitation, and white men's out-of-control relentless hunting—be it for animals or oil or a skewed male notion of power.

The book grows on you, and I think it will appeal to people who like big pictures full of substance. And it may be a kind of catnip for experience junkies, since every scene has its own deeply researched action—from fracking to pole dancing to card and video gaming to field biology observation and extreme fighting. I am neither of those people. However, John Sayles immerses himself in every single world he visits and is interested in everything and everyone. And if you just go where he takes you, his unexpected love at the end of this book makes you tingle all over. I am grateful for the journey.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had me hooked at the times I was reading it, but after I set it down I wasn’t always completely inspired to read it. I did like all the different perspectives and different characters it employed, even if there were a lot of characters. I liked being able to learn about how the oil industry works and the negative repercussions that happen from most of the steps. Like the major corner cutting/scams that end up with the oil areas not being cleaned up or taken into consideration when building? Not cool oil industry. The resolution was kind of iffy, and I’m kind of frustrated because I wanted to know if Brent gets caught and if they find Wayne Lee’s body.

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Sayles writes both novels and screenplays and was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The feature film I am most familiar with Sayles directing is Matawen about a Virginia coal miners strike that erupted into violence, and introduced the actor Chris Cooper. Sayles is known for taking on politically charged topics and portraying the viewpoint of the blue collar community. Yellow Earth is his fifth novel and continues his legacy of weaving different stories to portray the impact of fracking on the property owners who signed oil leases.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book because I love Sayles as a director, but it was too long and had too many characters and not enough action. It was like a blown up version of Lonestar (which I love) but examining the Bakken oil field. There were lots of great bits, lots of good characters, there were just too dang many. Loved the historical context of different boom times in ND history, didn’t need the entire plot line about Macario coming from Mexico. Yes, the global economy ties everything together, but there was rich enough plot to focus just on Native/white dynamics without adding illegal immigration too. Sayles has enough points he’s trying to make about the sins of capitalism to need that platform too.

[El · Rating 2 out of 5]

As ever the characters in a John Sayles novel are very human, and represent well their place and their time. You learn so much by engaging with the story cinematically (because each chapter and section could be screenplay staging, the dialog is well chosen to get big points across). But...this story is very bleak (and hey, in fiction, I am pro-bleak!) and considering it's based on the reality of the Bakken boom/bust it's just a little too...something. Cartoonish? I think the fact that there was zero redemption for any of the characters excepting one white couple is also kind of blind and badly thought through, especially because more than half of this novel takes place on a Native American reservation. White men! (smh)

[Janice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure how to review this book. It has several story lines, but too many to make any one of them the true focus. While it definitely held my interest, as it tells about the development of the oil industry in a rural area of North Dakota, I was often unsure of which character belonged to which part of the story. It was too choppy, too many characters, and not cohesive enough for me to feel very engaged with any character or segment of the novel. I did like the overall theme, showing the impact on not just the physical environment of the area, but also on the cultural norms and values of the people and tribes living in that area. I also had a mixed reaction to how the dialog is portrayed: I liked the authentic feel to many of the conversations, but because much of the dialog is written in the slang of the oilmen, the truckers, and local natives, I often had to read sentences several times to determine the structure and message being conveyed by the author. Overall, I think the writing shows a great deal of talent, and I would try something else by this author.

[Willie Kirschner · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a longtime fan of Mr. Sayles movies, and a former resident of North Dakota who worked on some cases in the Bakken oil fields, I had a lot of anticipation as I began this book.

I think that the book could be made into a good movie and hopefully they can film it in North Dakota and give some work to folks on the reservation. I could visualize Graham Green and Adam Beach in some of the parts. Maybe even Meg Tilly?

I hope he can get the money to make this into a movie!

[fire_on_the_mountain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sayles is a good enough writer to somehow have his voice shine through the dozens of characters and narrative strands that pull this story along. Or maybe more accurately, are yanked at the mercy of the Yellow Earth boom, and all the peaks and valleys and crevasses along the way. He gives life to everyone at every facet of the boom, and puts into stark reality just how all-consuming the totality of extractive industry can be when it reshapes a town, and the people in it. Nothing is the same, and I imagine it’s much like surfing: If you can catch the edge and ride it, you won’t get clobbered, but if you’re not looking you can get absolutely buried.

You don’t have to dig too hard to see the metaphors at work here. I like that. I don’t always want to have to frack my own understanding of literature and history to understand what’s happening here. This book puts the lesson up front and hits you with the steel pipe of it: when capital casts its eye on a community, it will be transformed, and you may not have a lot to say about what is left. Tread lightly.

[Lucy Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprised this wasn't more popular. The author did his research by watching eyewitness stories on youtube, and you definitely get a sense of that in the book. There is a plot, but the real focus is a wide-ranging collection of character perspectives.

I was going to give it 3 stars, because a lot of the plot seemed overdone. Like oh man a Super Corrupt Indian chief and a psychopathic oil exec, give me a break 😒 But then I looked up the situation this is based on afterwards, and all the outlandish stuff actually happened. Even the yacht?? So 4 stars it is

[Kathryn Mattern · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so impressed by John Sayles as a film-maker, and now as an author. This book reads like an in-depth version of one of his movies. The same vivid characters, multiple story-lines weaving in and out, generously sprinkled with pithy remarks. I have some familiarity with the history of mining in the West, so this book introduced me to the details of shale oil fracking/mining. It's a tour-de-force.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve long admired his films but this was my first venture into a novel by Sayles. It did not disappoint. Vivid characters and dialogue across a spectrum of humanity all in the context of a tragic American relationship to the land, grounded in a bio-region he has worked hard to know.

[Heidi Bakk-Hansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good window on what the Bakken must have been like during the Boom. It's the boom and bust that make the story arc, made of up little windows into various people who are impacted by it. Well written within those vignettes, but not a very compelling read.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely will read again.

[Dorinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Foreshadowing Standing Rock, an excellent look at all the interests at play when exploitation of natural resources on tribal and non-tribal lands create a Bakken-like boom and destruction of everyone and everything ensues

[Campbell Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inescapably reminiscent of Sayles' LONE STAR and his other cinematic anthropologies, Yellow Earth features too many characters to track and a little too much manufactured intrigue in its closing pages. But Sayles' keen ear and shrewd details, along with his trademark empathy, elevate the narrative beyond the polemic.

It's been seven years since his last feature; I doubt anybody would fund a fracking movie now. I suppose it's better as a novel than nothing.

[Joelb · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Sayles is a national treasure. He's far more prolific as a filmmaker than a novelist, but he holds his own in print as well.
Yellow Earth is set in a thinly disguised Williston, North Dakota, at the beginning of the frenzy over the discovery of frackable oil in the Bakken range. The novel weaves together the lives of 20 or 30 characters caught up in the frenzy, ranging from a couple of teenage girls who get in over their heads with shady men there for a quick buck, to the chief executive of the local Native reservation who sells oil leases on behalf of the tribe while working his own deals on the side. The through line of the story is capitalistic greed, and its wide-ranging effects.
Not every character is corrupt, but all are affected. Local landowners must deal with fast-talking oil lease contractors. When they sign up, they receive all the money offered but begin to realize the downside of the fine print - dusty, noisy access roads across their land to the oil rigs, abandoned equipment that the companies promise to clean up but never do, shell companies that make it impossible to affix responsibility for environmental degradation.
The local infrastructure is completely overwhelmed. The county sheriff has to deal with the fallout from the strip clubs erected to service the influx of men without women. The roughnecks live in stacked modular housing, make big money, and either gamble it away in the reservation casino or give it away in the strip clubs.
Sayles is adept at creating believable and often sympathetic characters. There are villains, of course, but most of the characters are good (or semi-good) people swept up by forces beyond their control or their understanding. A few manage to retain their humanity unscathed, but even those are affected.
Unlike most novels, this one doesn't have a central character. It's presented in four sections - Exploration, Stimulation, Extraction, Absquatulation (look it up - it's the perfect word here). The story arc follows the trajectory of the oil boom and the inevitable bust, as oversupply leads to lower prices which make the despoliation of Yellow Earth no longer profitable. The faceless corporations behind the invasion decide that further exploration is no longer profitable, so the people who invaded, desecrated the land and pocketed the profits all disappear. The people who were there to begin with are left to repair the damage and deal with the fallout.
Though no character is central, the major characters are clearly and convincingly portrayed. Harleigh Killdeer, chairman of the business council for the Three Nations reservation, balances his home life with his tribal duties and his business deal on the side with Brent, a grifter who talks Harley into partnering on an oilfield services company that turns out to be simply a shell. Wayne Lee Hickey, Brent's right-hand man (until he's not), wins the affections of Tina, a high-school aged coffee shop waitress attracted by Wayne Lee's Camaro and his direct, engaging style. Jewelle, an exotic dancer, is an astute student of human behavior, giving the illusion of intimacy while carefully maintaining her sense of autonomy. If I was looking for representations of ways to deal with the dehumanizing forces of greed at play in Yellow Earth, I’d say that Jewelle represents those who know how to turn it to their advantage. Only one character truly resists capitulation to these forces. Clayton Dollarhide, a crusty old rancher, refuses to sell his oil rights. He pursues his passion of oil painting. Even his tactic of complete withdrawal from the system doesn’t work entirely, however. His granddaughter is Tina, the coffee-shop waitress who’s swept up in the maelstrom through the instrument of Wayne Lee.
The organization of the novel presents somewhat of an obstacle keeping track of the characters. Each scenario or vignette lasts for a few pages, with an abrupt switch to the next one. Especially toward the beginning, when I was expecting transitions to help me keep characters and settings straight, none were provided. It takes a while to realize that the narrative will be a free-form affair, with characters and relationships re-emerging and interspersed with other characters and relationships. I think this structure is meant to convey the notion that no character is primary, that no character’s story controls the narrative, and that they all swim in a sea of capitalistic forces beyond their control. In that sense, Yellow Earth harks back to the naturalism of Stephen Crane or Theodore Dreiser. The story is not any character’s story; it is the story of their attempts at agency within a system that denies them any autonomy.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here goes the most painful two-star review I've ever done. Painful because I'm a John Sayles fan (as a movie maker and novelist), and there is so much that's good in Yellow Earth. That's just it, though. There's just so much here. Sayles' novel about an oil boom town in the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota includes seemingly every detail, every relevant job or character possible. There are so many characters and Sayles comes at the story from so many angles, reading it is a little like whack-a-mole. Or whack-a-prairie-dog, since prairie dogs are characters here, too.

The oil extraction companies and the fracking process itself. Town officials and law enforcement. The businesses that spring up to support the boom — trucking companies, exotic dancing, bars. The delicate balance of the small Native population with the hordes that descend on the area, part of which is reservation land. Politics big and small. Sayles pulls us through the muck with his deft handling of ordinary people caught in the swirl of changing life. Sayles has always been really good at getting inside these people, and he does it again with a succession of viewpoint sections.

But he leaves nothing out. The character count is just gigantic. Perhaps this novel would work better if it were 700 pages instead of 400-some, where stretching out and just being more epic with this cast, spending more time with each person, would help. Sayles' A Moment in the Sun runs about a thousand pages, and he managed to make that a magnificent five-star read.

Sayles really does a remarkable job in many ways. He writes well, of course. He puts us right there amid these people, the predatory and the preyed upon, the average folk trying to better themselves or just survive in an abruptly changing local world. But throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks sure can make for some messy walls. Yellow Earth looked like a five-star book, a real winner, but started to sink like the miles-long shafts drilled into the North Dakota earth. A page of incomprehensible fracking jargon pretty much capped this gusher for me. The research seemed phenomenal, but it's research all showy ("Hey! Look at me!") that kept the story from moving along. If you throw out nothing, it's hard to find what's meaningful. Giving us a very thick slice of real life we can't even get our hands around is great, but ultimately, this isn't real life. It's art.

Hey, it probably would have made a great movie.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent novel by Sayles. The sad tale of the fracking boom and bust in North Dakota is rendered largely through conversations between the myriad characters: the local whites, the Three Nations Indians, the industry geologists and oil-field roughnecks and the get-rich-quick schemers and hangers-on, the incidental characters, like the woman studying prairie dogs, whose habitat is destroyed by the drillers. As always, Sayles writes to show he knows what he is talking about. Much of the oil exploration and drilling details are rendered quickly, sharply, but we have to intuit a lot from the context, without a lot of explanation. I much prefer such oblique instruction than I do than the too frequent use of explanatory asides that mass-market writers like Ken Follett indulge in, to make clear to unsophisticated readers just what he is referring to. There are plenty of sympathetic characters--the prairie-dog scientist and her sheriff boyfriend, the crotchety painter who refuses to allow any intrusions on his land, the stripper Jewelle who, like the roughnecks and schemers, follows the action from boom-town to boom-town, the teens more or less trapped in an inhospitable social environment. Plenty of nogoodniks, too: the amoral chemically pumped-up grifter who forms a phony trucking and service company with the head of the Indian reservation, who thinks he is doing good for the reservation community while doing well for himself; the self-satisfied field company geologist who talks landowners into signing away their mineral leases. An excellent read that dramatizes very well the most recent assault on a land that has been assaulted over and over again to make money by draining away the area's resources.
An excellent read. Vivid characters in an important story that most people elsewhere didn't care about, as long as it meant cheaper gas.
I'll remember that Sayles cared about the land and the people enough to create a heart-breaking story of the effect of unchecked capitalism on a remote landscape.

[MisterLiberry Head · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boasting as large and busy a cast of characters as a Dickens novel, which YELLOW EARTH further resembles in its concerns with social and economic justice, John Sayles’s novel describes the destructive whirlwind wrought by a sudden oilfield boom on and around a remote Indian reservation in North Dakota. Harleigh Killdeer – the charismatic, fast-talking chairman of the Three Nations tribal council – wants to outwit Big Business to balance past land grabs by Whites, but he drinks the Oil Boom Kool-Aid. Case & Crosby landman Sig Rushmore has the morals of Prof. Harold Hill. Sheriff Will Crowder is a good cop who needs (but cannot get) 10 times as many new officers to cope with the Boom’s attendant crime wave and traffic problems. Yale-educated tribal lawyer Ruby Pino is “Pocahontas in pinstripes” (p172). Leia the Wildlife Girl is a biologist who studies the local males as dispassionately as she observes her subject prairie dogs. Written in the present tense, Sayles confidently imparts the same immediacy to this novel as in his 100+ screenplays. Unfortunately, Sayles seems emotionally distant from his characters and their stories. YELLOW EARTH would be at home in the oeuvre of Naturalists like Dreiser, Hemingway, Jack London and bad Hemingway. Sayles’s approach throughout is much like that of the wildlife biologist: “You observe a specific coterie over time, through the cycles of mating, of birth and death, contraction and expansion of territory and begin to understand their behavior” (p.168).

[Noam Levinsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m writing my senior thesis about the bakken oil boom. This novel reassured me I’m studying the right thing.

The narrative structure is brilliant. The prose, especially describing the prairie, is gorgeous. The characters are so human. I really liked jewelle, will, Leia, and dickyboy. I liked how fast the boom fizzled out. I liked how its disappearance was digital - an untraceable push of a button.

This book was opaque. A lot of its beauty lies in that mystery.

Thank you John Sayles!

One day after I finished this: I’m thinking about how this book depicts change - social change, landscape change, personal change. Like the narration, it’s fragmented: some pages contain these massive twists and other long sections contain not much besides lush landscape descriptions. There are these accelerations and slowdowns that make the novel feel both flowing and punctuated. I’m a fan.

How do you tell the story of an entire place? A vast swath of seemingly empty country? You tell it through opaque glimpses into change, through prairie dog holes and bar fights. I love this book the more I think about it.

[Kitty Galore · Rating 4 out of 5]

With many thanks to the good people at Haymarket Books for providing me with this review copy.

It is clearly evident that the author, John Sayles, is a filmographer in addition to an accomplished author. Minus some of the adjectives, the book reads like a movie script and I hope it will at some point become one Primarily if one cares for these things, the destruction of the environment through fracking, the duplicitousness of those who would separate unknowledgeable people from their money, and the destruction of American Indian culture and life, this would present in a more widely venue, the greed that runs through American capitalism.

While at times a bit rambling, it is apparent Mr. Sayles has completely researched the subject and presented the facts in novel form while allowing the reader to connect the dots and form an individual opinion. Well worth reading but prepare for indignation and anger.

[Paul Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written, great dialogue, compelling narrative. The book has very little, if any, plot line; I'd characterize it as a series of vignettes about a disparate collection of characters whose primary connection is living in the fictional town of Yellow Earth ND during the Bakkan oil deposit fracking boom. It deals with the political relationship between federal and privately owned land, and reservation land. Towards the end of the book there is a murder, a oil well blowout, and a general economic decline as the price of oil craters and the petroleum companies cap their wells rather than operate at a loss. The last page of the hardback version, "About Haymarket Books", says "We strive to make our books a vibrant and organic part of social movements and the education and development of a critical, international left". I didn't get any sort of political statement from the book, it's just a novel about some interesting people adapting to an influx of money into their environment.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Because I am a big fan of John Sayles as a film director and screenwriter it pains me greatly to admit I couldn't finish "Yellow Earth". His work about a North Dakota town about to experience explosive growth with the fracking boom is unreadable. Like many of his movies in which Sayles takes his time telling the story, remember that a movie's length is about two hours. "Yellow Earth" has all the earmarks of a ten hour job and after 121 pages it just didn't interest me. Worse, it talked down to the reader. Instead of entertaining the reader he seems to be saying "Look how much research work I did studying the fracking industry, how to drill a hole, and how the workers all have their own language." The worst part is I'll bet he couldn't scale this down to an enjoyable two hour screenplay. This one should stay buried in the yellow earth.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meandering and episodic, John Sayles Yellow Earth is a big book, not necessarily in length, though it pushes past 400 pages, but in theme. The narrative is relatively simple, big oil comes to town to frack and people's lives are changed. There are so many characters that it may seem overwhelming and in following the elements of their lives, but Sayles balances each character, regardless of word count per person, in developing real people with interior lives. While the clear surface here is in revealing the corruption and corrosive nature of oil production in the US, Sayles bigger goal is to tell the story of people, as they live, the way they interact with the world on a minute to minute basis, which unfolds into a tapestry of life within a community. The oil comes and goes, but the people stay. The place stays. The world continues on.

[Julia Capasso · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I saw the page count for this book, I was nervous- would my COVID-reduced attention span let me get lost in such an epic? The answer was YES. I found Yellow Earth to be a compelling rambler that somehow managed to educate (fracking explained in accessible detail) and entertain as a complex character study. Yes, there are a lot of characters, but their stories interweave together in a single narrative flow. The different perspectives of each were fascinating and fully formed- real people measuring trade offs with benefits, short and long term alike, to try to make a better life (however they choose to define “better”). This was the first Sayles novel I read and it made me eager to visit his back catalog.

[Sabine Sloley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The boom and bust of the Bakken oil fields, told in a story with a large, almost unwieldy cast of POV characters spanning a universe of human conditions and desires. It took some time to settle into the rhythm of the many interwoven stories and find the through line, but boy was it worth it. FWIW, I listened to this one as an audiobook, and I was struck by one short chapter in which Sayles describes some aspect of the the operation of a drilling rig, using all the technical terms. Completely incomprehensible to a lay reader, but as a whole that chapter was sublime. Practically lyrical and poetic, a flood of words like a foreign language; the arcana of specialized work. I loved it. (I wonder how hard he had to fight the editors to keep it in the novel—I'm glad he did.)

[Jennifer Thie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Portrays what happens when fracking moves into your neighborhood thru the stories of the locals and the working oil workers and the crowd that comes with them such as drug dealers, grifters and strip clubs. Lots of characters and at time hard to keep them all straight. As always, John Sayles champions the small town people trying to do the right thing. He seems to have a soft spot for the virtuous sheriff in his works such as his movie Lone Star.. I found this book much more readable than Moment in the Sun. Published by Haymarket Books which describes itself as a radical, independent, nonprofit book publisher. John Sayles is a force for good in this world.

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm torn about this one. Mr Sayles is primarily a screenwriter and the book reads like a documentary more than a novel. It begins with the discovery of shale oil deposits near Yellow Earth, ND, and follows a group of townspeople, Native Americans from the adjacent reservation, speculators, fracking engineers and field workers, strippers, con-men, and everybody else affected by the sudden influx of people and cash. The writing is excellent, characters are vivid and memorable, but there's no plotline, as such - no climax, no resolution, just the progressive degradation of the social and natural environment of a quiet prairie town. More commentary than novel.

[Don · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sayles has made superb films; Matewan, Lone Star, The Secret of Roan Inish, Passion Fish and Brother From Another Planet. This novel is set in North Dakota in place called Yellow Earth that is experiencing an oil boom. There is the tribal chairman who wants to cash in. A creepy white guy who wants to cash in. Creepy drug addicts who want to cash in. The sheriff who wants to keep order and a biologist who is studying Prairie Digs. Yellow Earth, is not up to those lofty heights of Sayles's movies. There are way too many characters, too many sub plots and his syntax is confusing. I wish he would make more films.

[Jody · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me several pages to get into it. It’s divided into 4 large sections—not chapters. There are a LOT of characters in this story and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep track but I persevered and glad I did. One of the characters is a scientist who’s observing prairie dog behavior for a research project. As I got deeper into the book I could see how the humans’ behaviors weren’t that different from the P-dogs. Which isn’t exactly complimentary. By the time I got to the 4th and final section I was totally all-in to see how/where or even IF these characters were going to survive.