Genre Fiction
![Pete Beatty - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B08BX9SX15.jpg)
Cuyahoga: A Novel
Longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
"Cuyahoga is tragic and comic, hilarious and inventive-a 19th-century legend for 21st-century America" (The Boston Globe).
Big Son is a spirit of the times-the times being 1837. Behind his broad shoulders, shiny hair, and church-organ laugh, Big Son practically made Ohio City all by himself. The feats of this proto-superhero have earned him wonder and whiskey, but very little in the way of fortune. And without money, Big cannot become an honest husband to his beloved Cloe (who may or may not want to be his honest wife).
In pursuit of a steady wage, our hero hits the (dirt) streets of Ohio City and Cleveland, the twin towns racing to become the first great metropolis of the West. Their rivalry reaches a boil over the building of a bridge across the Cuyahoga River-and Big stumbles right into the kettle. The resulting misadventures involve elderly terrorists, infrastructure collapse, steamboat races, wild pigs, and multiple ruined weddings.
Narrating this "very funny, rambunctious debut novel" (Los Angeles Times) tale is Medium Son-known as Meed-apprentice coffin maker, almanac author, orphan, and the younger brother of Big. Meed finds himself swept up in the action, and he is forced to choose between brotherly love and his own ambitions. His uncanny voice-plain but profound, colloquial but poetic-elevates a slapstick frontier tale into a "breezy fable of empire, class, conquest, and ecocide" (The New York Times Book Review).
Evoking the Greek classics and the Bible alongside nods to Looney Tunes, Charles Portis, and Flannery O'Connor, Pete Beatty has written "a hilarious and moving exploration of family, home, and fate [and] you won't read anything else like it this year" (BuzzFeed).
"Cuyahoga is tragic and comic, hilarious and inventive-a 19th-century legend for 21st-century America" (The Boston Globe).
Big Son is a spirit of the times-the times being 1837. Behind his broad shoulders, shiny hair, and church-organ laugh, Big Son practically made Ohio City all by himself. The feats of this proto-superhero have earned him wonder and whiskey, but very little in the way of fortune. And without money, Big cannot become an honest husband to his beloved Cloe (who may or may not want to be his honest wife).
In pursuit of a steady wage, our hero hits the (dirt) streets of Ohio City and Cleveland, the twin towns racing to become the first great metropolis of the West. Their rivalry reaches a boil over the building of a bridge across the Cuyahoga River-and Big stumbles right into the kettle. The resulting misadventures involve elderly terrorists, infrastructure collapse, steamboat races, wild pigs, and multiple ruined weddings.
Narrating this "very funny, rambunctious debut novel" (Los Angeles Times) tale is Medium Son-known as Meed-apprentice coffin maker, almanac author, orphan, and the younger brother of Big. Meed finds himself swept up in the action, and he is forced to choose between brotherly love and his own ambitions. His uncanny voice-plain but profound, colloquial but poetic-elevates a slapstick frontier tale into a "breezy fable of empire, class, conquest, and ecocide" (The New York Times Book Review).
Evoking the Greek classics and the Bible alongside nods to Looney Tunes, Charles Portis, and Flannery O'Connor, Pete Beatty has written "a hilarious and moving exploration of family, home, and fate [and] you won't read anything else like it this year" (BuzzFeed).
Editorial Reviews
"Beatty evokes the familiarities of genre, history and place while drafting them for a wild new context. In this regard, Cuyahoga is a breezy fable of empire, class, conquest and ecocide… Beatty revels in fabulizing a region he clearly knows and loves."
-New York Times Book Review
"Pete Beatty's very funny, rambunctious debut novel, Cuyahoga…could be read with pleasure in 2002, or 1950. Or 1837, when most of it is set. It's a satire of tall tales, but not a distant, too-cool treatment. Beatty, a Cleveland-area native, deeply inhabits the tone and style of the form, paying sidelong homage to an essential American genre… A healthy society might stand to be more skeptical of the myth-making that creates such figures. But in the society we have, they endure, and Beatty wrings absurd and serious pleasure from them."
-Los Angeles Times
"Entertaining, rambunctious, and touching… [Big Son is] the most extraordinary hero in Ohio's history, a hero hitherto unknown and unsung (and, admittedly, fictional)… Cuyahoga is filled with memorable characters…Rough-hewn and ribald, uproarious and affecting, Beatty's novel is a singular piece of work. Big Son is a frontier demigod in the mold of Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and Davy Crockett, but far more poignantly drawn than any of them…The book's dialogue is wonderfully idiosyncratic, its asides surprisingly insightful…A great read set in a great city, Cuyahoga is tragic and comic, hilarious and inventive - a 19th-century legend for 21st-century America,"
-Boston Globe
"A light-hearted parody of America's founding mythologies,"
-The Wall Street Journal
"A hilarious and moving exploration of family, home, and fate ... you won't read anything else like it this year."
-Buzzfeed, most anticipated
"It's worth mentioning how much fun there is to be had with Cuyahoga, a lot of which will provoke out-loud laughter. The robust yarn's patron spirits would include Twain and Charles (True Grit) Portis. Beatty has fashioned a true picaresque accomplishment,"
-Artsfuse
"A boisterous adventure."
-The Millions, most anticipated
"A vigorous American story of competition and heroism… a richly embroidered, most original tale."
-Akron Beacon Journal
"Cuyahoga brings long ago midwest back to life,"
-Chicago Reader
"A rollicking, inventive, satirical twist on fables and tall tales…with an engrossing style of prose and h...
-New York Times Book Review
"Pete Beatty's very funny, rambunctious debut novel, Cuyahoga…could be read with pleasure in 2002, or 1950. Or 1837, when most of it is set. It's a satire of tall tales, but not a distant, too-cool treatment. Beatty, a Cleveland-area native, deeply inhabits the tone and style of the form, paying sidelong homage to an essential American genre… A healthy society might stand to be more skeptical of the myth-making that creates such figures. But in the society we have, they endure, and Beatty wrings absurd and serious pleasure from them."
-Los Angeles Times
"Entertaining, rambunctious, and touching… [Big Son is] the most extraordinary hero in Ohio's history, a hero hitherto unknown and unsung (and, admittedly, fictional)… Cuyahoga is filled with memorable characters…Rough-hewn and ribald, uproarious and affecting, Beatty's novel is a singular piece of work. Big Son is a frontier demigod in the mold of Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, and Davy Crockett, but far more poignantly drawn than any of them…The book's dialogue is wonderfully idiosyncratic, its asides surprisingly insightful…A great read set in a great city, Cuyahoga is tragic and comic, hilarious and inventive - a 19th-century legend for 21st-century America,"
-Boston Globe
"A light-hearted parody of America's founding mythologies,"
-The Wall Street Journal
"A hilarious and moving exploration of family, home, and fate ... you won't read anything else like it this year."
-Buzzfeed, most anticipated
"It's worth mentioning how much fun there is to be had with Cuyahoga, a lot of which will provoke out-loud laughter. The robust yarn's patron spirits would include Twain and Charles (True Grit) Portis. Beatty has fashioned a true picaresque accomplishment,"
-Artsfuse
"A boisterous adventure."
-The Millions, most anticipated
"A vigorous American story of competition and heroism… a richly embroidered, most original tale."
-Akron Beacon Journal
"Cuyahoga brings long ago midwest back to life,"
-Chicago Reader
"A rollicking, inventive, satirical twist on fables and tall tales…with an engrossing style of prose and h...
Readers Top Reviews
Nancy VandersteinTC
I live in Cleveland and I expected a lot more from this book. It’s about the bridge wars between Cleveland and Ohio City. But it turned into this mess of a story about a larger that life character with superhuman strength. He wasn’t even likable. So disappointed. I finally spend money on a book and this is what I chose?
GumpieSpackler
I am so sorry to say I could not finish this book...I got about 30 pages read and for some reason it was a difficult read. I wondered if it was me so I loaned it to a friend and she had the same issue. I was hoping this would be a great book but alas, not for me.
WordsmithMarlowe
I really wanted to win this book. I kept thinking back to this Tall Tales movie that Disney produced years ago that told the stories of Paul Bunyan, the lumberjack, and Babe, the Blue Ox, and Pecos Bill, a cowboy superhero who invented the six-shooter and lassoed a tornado. In my mind, I was liking Cuyahoga to this movie, but I was sorely disappointed. Beatty took the idea of the Tall Tale to the extreme. He had the characters, Meed and his brother, Big Son, and the characters had the language of the Ohio territory, which I won't detail here because this is where the story falls off the wagon. Beatty goes wild with his idea of the Tall Tale: The language makes little sense, the story makes less sense unless you read it 10 times over, and by the middle of the book, my notes made no sense, and I gave up! I tried, but I had to stop three times and read something else in English before I could go back to it. This was the first book I have ever not finished. God Bless James Joyce, I even finished "The Dubliners" and got an A in the class! I am so sorry, Professor Beatty!
Short Excerpt Teaser
Winter.
In the stories you are used to, a stranger arrives at the castle, or the king is gnawed by crisis. Swords bang together. Ghosts trouble a pale hero. Lovers' hearts boiling. We drink down such wild stories to drown our worries. They are whiskey to wash out our brains.
My brother's stories are more apple cider. They are good to drink but you will not forget yourself entirely. Wholesome tales, without too many fricasseed widows. True mostly – I will not lie any more than is wanted for decency. Simple and moral, easy to grab, the better to encourage someone over the head with. Not too quiet – you must not fall asleep. Let us have commerce and racing horses. Progress and the mastery of nature. Swap swords for axes and plows. Let us have tenderness but also a dash of cussedness and tragedy. All in the manner native to Ohio.
In this story lovers' hearts do not boil but go slowly like stew. The crisis has got square cow's teeth instead of fangs. There is not a king to be seen. Only my brother as hero.
And we will have a stranger at the castle.
I will take that good part.
My name is Medium Son.
We are no longer strangers any – folks call me Meed.
In the stories you are used to, a stranger arrives at the castle, or the king is gnawed by crisis. Swords bang together. Ghosts trouble a pale hero. Lovers' hearts boiling. We drink down such wild stories to drown our worries. They are whiskey to wash out our brains.
My brother's stories are more apple cider. They are good to drink but you will not forget yourself entirely. Wholesome tales, without too many fricasseed widows. True mostly – I will not lie any more than is wanted for decency. Simple and moral, easy to grab, the better to encourage someone over the head with. Not too quiet – you must not fall asleep. Let us have commerce and racing horses. Progress and the mastery of nature. Swap swords for axes and plows. Let us have tenderness but also a dash of cussedness and tragedy. All in the manner native to Ohio.
In this story lovers' hearts do not boil but go slowly like stew. The crisis has got square cow's teeth instead of fangs. There is not a king to be seen. Only my brother as hero.
And we will have a stranger at the castle.
I will take that good part.
My name is Medium Son.
We are no longer strangers any – folks call me Meed.
