The Cold Millions

Jess Walter's fiction has covered comedy, history, crime, character study, and more, but I don't think he's ever put so much into one book before. His most recent novel centers on two brothers, Rye and Gig Dolan, scrabbling for a living as they ride the rails of the Northwest in 1909. Both are caught by a current of social unrest, swept downstream along with a cast of labor organizers, plutocrats, suffragists, vaudeville stars, mobsters, and many humble others. The judicious blend of reality and imagination brings E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime to mind, but as a portrait of the Inland Empire of the Palouse, there's nothing else like it. The Cold Millions is an extravagant, panoramic story told with rumbustious verve, and it's sure as heck going to be on my year's best list. —James (from the Madison Books newsletter)