Last Updated on May 2, 2025
Resident Donna Martin will review News of the World: A Novel by Paulette Jiles on Tuesday, May 20, 2025 at 7 PM in the Auditorium. This is her review for the May 2025 issue of The Sunburst.
While this fine literary work reads as history, it is a novel of compelling proportions. A widower and survivor of three wars (including the Civil War), our hero is the illustrious but reticent Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd. Thinking that his retirement would surely begin, Captain Kidd is surprised to be driving south, 400 miles from Wichita Falls to San Antonio, with a wild, also reticent 10 year-old white orphan who was adopted by the Kiowa. Johanna, as the captain has named her, doesn’t remember how to speak English. Thus begins a tumultuous, dangerous 400-mile journey.
The story form and the beautiful descriptive prose writing immediately gripped this reader. Topped off with a storyline that prevented me from putting the book
down, it immediately came to mind as a great read for this tumultuous time. It required me to think about how news gatherings have changed over the centuries and how people receive them. You will enjoy this exciting and
relevant story from the Reconstruction period, mulling how we are now affected by the news.
Paulette Jiles is a poet, memoirist, and best-selling author. Her other books include Enemy Women.
Donna Martin loves history and novels and thus enjoys historic novels. Her review is presented in honor of retired Bishop Chilton Knudsen, a regular Book Review presenter.