Promised Lands: A Novel of the Texas Reb

Readers of Crook's second historical novel (after The Raven's Bride ) will probably remember most vividly the sheer bodily pain and discomfort, described in often sickening detail, experienced by all of the characters presented here. In this absorbing narrative, Crook tells of two families, one American and one Mexican, involved in the Texas Rebellion of 1836; their lives become politically and emotionally related. Crook's careful research results in a vivid and unsparing portrait of the physical and psychological horrors of the conflict. Parents are separated from children, wives from husbands, brothers from sisters; the wounded wander the land like ghosts; there is little mercy towards prisoners. Crook's prose, while suffering occasional lapses in word choice (in what is supposed to be a romantic scene between Katie and William, Crook writes that ``William wormed in close to her''), is generally tough and wise (when, after Katie loses her grasp on her grandmother and the old woman slips into the river and is washed away, ``Katie thought how horrible for Grand to know that the final human touch she ever had was someone letting go''). Crook conveys an almost tactile sense of life in a different time. (Mar.)