#9 – Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles – Best Reads of 2023

It wouldn’t be a Heartlands Top Ten list without at least one book about Texas. Paulette Jiles’ 2020 book Simon the Fiddler fits the bill nicely. Jiles, with her poet’s eye, has a knack for writing books that feel small even when they’re about a place as vast as the Lone Star State. This National Book Award finalist begins with an itinerant fiddler sent to participate in the sad, post-Appomattox battle of Los Palmitos, a pointless coda to the Civil War.

By skill and circumstance Simon, the fiddler, finds himself teamed with a ragtag group of musicians at a Union celebration after the battle. At first sight he falls for an Irish servant indentured to a Union general headed for San Antonio. The rest of the book traces the musicians’ sometimes tragic, sometimes winsome journey through post-war Texas, always with Simon’s love interest beckoning from afar.

Jiles always has a gentle way with her characters. The drama never overwhelms the humanity she gives us. It’s the same formula, in the same Reconstruction-era setting, that worked so well in her previous book, News of the World. The news-reading Captain from that work even makes a brief cameo here.

I’ll follow Paulette Jiles anywhere and I look forward to her next adventure. She makes the list at #9.

In Case You Missed It:

#10 – 24 Hours in Charlottesville by Nora Neus