A thoroughly entertaining read. Half white, half Indian, Joe Cobden is abandoned in a church porch and taken in by a childless doctor. The doctor adopts him, but it is not a successful relationship and Joe, who grows up a hunchback, escapes as soon as he can. We follow his life as he struggles with poverty, ostracism and prejudice in the American West, forging a life for himself against all the odds, re-inventing himself as many times as necessary with ingenuity and determination at every step. His world is peopled by other misfits and outcasts, all struggling in an unkind world. Against a backdrop of the harsh and unforgiving pioneer states, it’s a bleak and often harrowing yarn, with little redemption for any of the characters, an epic tale told with verve and pacing, an imaginative and original tale that I found compelling and which drew me in right through the 700 pages. Normally I shudder at the idea of a picaresque novel, but that’s probably the most apt word to use here, a soap opera of a novel but one told with humanity and empathy at its core. This is great historical writing, well-researched and atmospheric. Highly recommended.