Book Review - Gabriel's Story

It was difficult to write this review of David Anthony Durham's debut novel Gabriel’s Story. After several attempts and numerous rewrites I remained frustrated. The novel is excellent, the product of a novelist who can look forward to future success, but my problem is simple - I can’t shake the desire to retell this story. My close identification with Gabriel and his story is likely the cause. So as briefly and hopefully sufficiently as possible, I write this review, allowing you to make up your mind whether or not to read this excellent novel for yourself.

I have to hand it to David Anthony Durham; Gabriel’s Story set dreams aflight in me. Growing up as a suburbanite and living in close proximity to wooded areas along the Ohio River, many of my days were spent with my brother and our friends, dreaming of adventures and journeys beyond our imaginations. Gabriel’s Story is a dream-launching, imagination converting into life kind of novel

On the prospect of a new life on the plains of Kansas, Eliza, Gabriel’s mother, uproots her two sons, Gabriel and Ben, and head west to new husband and new life. The family leaves their home in a Baltimore brownstone apartment in the East, for a "soddy," a house constructed of sod bricks cut from the landscape on the plains of Kansas, a primitive life at best. Shortly after arriving, Gabriel becomes enamored with the cowboys of the plains. Mustering up courage only after the prompting of a newly acquainted friend, James, Gabriel leaves the sod house and family and strikes out into unknown adventures, as a hand for a gang of marauders led by a vicious and heartless man named Marshall and his quiet but equally cruel right-hand man, a Negro named Caleb. In a similar way to Gabriel, the author strikes out into uncharted lands in African American contemporary fiction, with a prodigal coming of age in Gabriel's Story, David Anthony Durham's debut novel.

Durham’s strength as a novelist is evident in his descriptive accounts throughout the novel. Durham describes the novel’s protagonist in this way:

Gabriel had just turned fifteen, although he looked two or three years older. He had a strong body, tall and lean, with the long legs of his nomadic ancestors. His wool jacket cramped his shoulders and impeded the swing of his arms. His skin was a dark shade of brown stretched taut across his features, as if the components of his face were growing more rapidly than the shell. His nose was thin-bridged, with a distinctive flair to the nostrils that was wholly African in design.

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