John Harris

Good historical novels are praised until they get too good, and then they are savaged in reviews as bad history.     Reviewing John Harris’ novel “So Far From God”, loosely based on “Gringo Rebel”, forces the question on us, since it is a really great example of the very bad historical novel.    So before looking at “So Far From God”, we ought to look at some examples of excellent historical novels, so as not to encourage the throwing out of the baby out with the bath-water.