Buffalo Nickel
Published by Simon & Schuster
The Story
In 1917 oil was discovered on David Copperfield's land in Oklahoma - and overnight the Kiowa ferryman, a.k.a., Went On A Journey , became a millionaire. From his childhood in the tamed West of a reservation (where buffalo are imported from the Bronx Zoo) to his career as professional Indian in the celluloid Wild West of Hollywood, Buffalo Nickel vividly evokes all the drama and irony of David's life. Here is the moving story of a man torn between two cultures - and two women: Laura Darby, a washed-up vaudeville singer who marries David to grab his money and then ditch him, but sticks around as he becomes a respected movie star and philanthropist; and Iola Conroy, a childhood Kiowa friend and Red Cross nurse who ultimately follows David to California, where she is forced to confront David's marriage - and her own identity. David and his fellow travelers, who also include a crusty oilman and a "do-gooder" disciple of Aimee Semple McPherson, are all trapped by the disorienting aftermath of the white man's conquests of the Indian - and a rage of unfulfilled yearnings erupts as the novel moves toward an explosive climax.
Interlaced with native American myths and legends that serve as an illuminating counterpoint to the action of the story, Buffalo Nickel is an all-American novel of love, money, and race - and an epic work of historical imagination.
Praise & Reviews
“This is a western novel is the most positive sense, a book that reveals a moment in history even as it tells a story of cultural alienation, love, greed, betrayal and longing. A seasoned raconteur with a historian's command of h is material, which includes the Indian myths he weaves into the narrative, Smith ...spins a powerful, poignant but unsentimental story of a Kiowa Indian and his uneasy habitation in the white man's world in the early part of this century....Though the book spans just 25 years, the emotional and psychical distances Smith's characters travel are immense, and his loving narrative makes Buffalo Nickel a compelling read.”
— Publisher’s Weekly
“The destruction of native American cultures might be considered by some readers to be a literary dry hole. But this novel, about a Kiowa man who inadvertently becomes an Oklahoma oil millionaire, is a rich gusher of a novel - and consequently disproves any such notions. The man, born with the name Went On A Journey but renamed David Copperfield in a missionary school, is old enough to know tribal lore but sees his first live buffalo imported from the Bronx Zoo. Not white but unable to be a true Kiowa, David wrestles with cultural isolation in addition to things that everyone wrestles with - love, money, and living a decent and meaningful life. This is a big novel, in all senses - the characters and the incidents of their lives made memorably real.”
— Book List
“Buffalo Nickel is a delightful rarity: an old-fashioned "good read" which tells the life story of a likable and interesting character who truly grows and changes....The novel is a roomy, agreeably slow-paced picaresque whose serious themes (the abrading of Indian culture, the gradual disappearance of space and wilderness) emerge with haunting clarity from a prose that continuously suggests and dramatizes, never once breaking into sermon. Buffalo Nickel may well be the year's best novel.”
— USA Today
“Rich with Indian legends and historical detail, this novel has an interesting feel about it and a thoughtfulness that makes it more than simple entertainment.”
— Library Journal
“What a brave and complex novel C.W. Smith has written about the clash of the Kiowa Indian and white cultures of the American West in the early part of this century. Oil-rich David Copperfield, a Kiowan and the focus of this wonderful saga, lives foolishly and loves mistakenly in his attempt to decide who he is. Finally, along with the men who cheat him and the women who love or fail to love him, Copperfield becomes — in a movingly honest portrayal -- the creator of his own destiny. A wrenching story!” Candace Flynt, author of Mother Love
"Buffalo Nickel is first rate. Epic in its ambitions, this novel weaves Indian history and private pain into a tale of haunting and gathering force. C.W. Smith has given us a work of generosity and originality." Jim Magnuson, author of Open Seasonand The Hounds of Winter.
"Buffalo Nickel is an old-fashioned good read, an absorbing saga of a generation of Kiowa Indians caught between cultures and values. The novel weaves myth and history into a narrative that sweeps across the plains of Oklahoma, through the oil fields, to the coasts of Southern California and the back lots of Hollywood, unfolding an era of American history as it rolls." Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, author of The Dark Path to the River
"Buffalo Nickel is a grand, restless, heartbreaking novel about the scarcely imaginable distances an individual — and a people--can travel in the space of a single lifetime. C.W. Smith's grasp of Kiowa life and lore is an impressive achievement that goes far beyond mere research. Like the best historical novels, Buffalo Nickel is suffused not just with information but with an author's haunted and searching presence." Stephen Harrigan, author of The Gates of the Alamo
"C.W. Smith strikes oil again, this time in Oklahoma, in Hollywood, and in his search for a true American hero. A fine, absorbing, well-written book to be read and savored once, and to be read and enjoyed more than once." Rolando Hinojosa author of The Valley