Stations West »

Oklahoma is a forgotten territory of ôIndians, outlaws, and immigrantsö when its first Jewish settler, Boggy Haurowitz, arrives in 1859. Full of expectations, he finds the untamed region a formidable foe, its landscape rugged, its resources strained. In Stations West, four generations of Haurowitzes, intertwined with a family of Swedish immigrants, struggle against the TerritoryAÆs ôinsatiable appetite.ö The challenges of creating a home amid betrayals, natureAÆs vagaries, and burgeoning statehood prove too great. Each generation in turn succumbs to the overwhelming lure of the transcontinental railroad, and each returns home to find the landscape of their youth, like themselves, changed beyond recognition, their family utterly transformed. Dramatic and lyrical, Allison AmendAÆs first novel, steeped in the history and lore of the Oklahoma Territory, tells an unforgettable multigenerationalùand very Americanùstory of Jewish pioneers, their adopted family, and the challenges they face. Amid the founding of the West, Stations WestAÆs generations struggle to forge and maintain their identities as Jews, as immigrants, and as Americans.

Publishers Weekly

Amend’s debut novel (after the collection Things That Pass for Love) is the thin and grim multigenerational story of a pioneer family hacking its way through the frontier states, beginning with the 1880 marriage of Jewish-Cherokee dishwasher Moshe Haurowitz to pregnant Irish prostitute Alice O’Malley in Orerich, Colo. After Moshe abandons Alice and baby Garfield, he works for the railroad and later returns to fetch Garfield, father and son eventually settling in Denton Station, Okla., where they form a business partnership with a family of Swedes headed by Fritz and Rika. Garfield, now a hotheaded adolescent, falls in love with Fritz and Rika’s pregnant daughter, Dora, and runs away to ride the rails, changing his name and staking his fortune in oil before settling down in “the land of misfits and can’t-get-alongs.” Amend dashes through some 50 years and four generations, but the brisk pace shortchanges drama and character development—except for Garfield, who emerges as a shrewd and forceful personality—and leaves the reader feeling underwhelmed by what could be an immersive epic. (Mar.)

Pt. 1 Arrows to the Future, 1880-1893 1

Pt. 2 The Tracks Single Out, 1893-1894 51

Pt. 3 Driving the Ties Together, 1894-1895 83

Pt. 4 Fallen Trees Make a Dam, 1896-1902 131

Pt. 5 The Machine, Spectacular and Solid, 1903-1907 167

Pt. 6 A Track Upward to the Clouds, 1908-1930 189

Pt. 7 Staring into the Past, 1935-1937 213

Epilogue 247

Acknowledgments 249