The Son by Philipp Meyer

Rumours of Philipp Meyer's method approach to research have swirled around his second novel, The Son. At August's Edinburgh International Book Festival he spoke of learning to track and hunt to better understand the lives of the American Plains Indians. He also confirmed drinking significant quantities of buffalo blood – consumed in Commanche rituals – in order to accurately describe its taste.

Following in a Southern Gothic tradition, there are traces of Faulkner everywhere, but it is Cormac McCarthy's brutal rewriting of the Old West in Blood Meridian this feels closest to. The extent of Meyer's research is evident, not just in the firsthand experiences he feeds directly into the narrative, but more tellingly in the vast history of Texas he draws from.

The Son is the story of three generations of McCullochs. In alternating chapters we follow Eli (known as the Colonel in later life) – kidnapped by and ingratiated into a Comanche tribe – his disapointment of a son Pete, and his great-granddaughter and oil magnate Jeannie. Meyer's book is a retelling of the American creation myth, an unflinching look at how fragile the bonds of love and family are, but most strikingly a testament to the inescapable cruelty of men, which has shaped history throughout the centuries. Never quite finding the beauty or elegiac notes of McCarthy, this is still a first-rate historical novel and a modern American classic. [Ryan Rushton]