You, Knighted States

THE PAUKTAUG TRILOGY comes to a conclusion with You, Knighted States-part novel of manners, part re-revisionist Western, part high burlesque of New England Transcendentalism, and, like its predecessors, part philosophical-thriller. The novel ranges from nineteenth-century Long Island to the high plains of the American Wild West.

Why has Ellsworth Crabbe rebuilt, in frontier cattle country, an exact replica of his native Long Island village? Why does he increase his herd to unprecedented size...