Lost Man's River: Book 2 of the Shadow Country Trilogy - Historical Fiction Novel for Book Clubs & Literature Lovers

I want to concentrate here on the differences between Lost Man's River and Book II of Matthiessen's Shadow Country, which is a combined, condensed, and revised version of the three books of the Watson Trilogy (Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone). I've not yet read Bone by Bone, but I've read the other three books and so far have much preferred the original versions to rewritten ones.The differences are most pronounced with Lost Man's River, which not only was massively shortened in length was also massively revised. Parts of it seemed like a completely different--and better--book than Shadow County. Yes, the longer version is occasionally tiresome (especially parts of Lucius's visit to Fort White), but it also provides lots more of what people loved in Killing Mister Watson, namely wonderfully written narrations in local dialect (sometimes frightening, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes tender) by Ten Thousand Islanders, along with an intense plot that has been gutted from Book II of Shadow Country. The resolution of that plot, involving not only Lucius and brother Rob but also Andy House, Whitten and Sally Harden, and Henry Short, not only provides the truth about E.J. Watson (yes, readers of Killing Mister Watson will get wanted answers) but hints of mended family discord and reduced racial hatred.Ironically, Matthiessen seemed unhappy with Lost Man's River, cutting it in Shadow Country to move more quickly from what he considered his strong beginning to his strong conclusion. To my mind, he might have better stopped with Lost Man's River, an excellent book in its own right, which Book II is not. Book III (the revised version of Bone by Bone), on the other hand, is told in what is supposed to be Ed Watson's voice, but that voice, unlike so much of the great dialect elsewhere in the trilogy, is obviously Matthiessen's, and one of Watson's final acts, as told by Matthiessen, is totally out of character. Read Killing Mister Watson, then Lost Man's River. Bone by Bone would be optional.