Magic Words: the tale of a Jewish boy-interpreter, the world's most estimable magician, a murderous harlot, and America's greatest Indian chief / Gerald Kolpan 400 p.

A fantastic surprise, as well as a minor disappointment.  The surprise for me was Kolpan's amazing and mostly true tale of Julius Meyer, who emigrates from eastern Europe to Omaha just after the Civil War.  He has an almost-supernatural gift for languages, so when he's captured by the Ponca while on a trading mission Julius quickly goes from being their lowly prisoner to the interpreter and right-hand man of the Chief.  A second storyline involves Julius' cousin Alexander, a magician of almost-supernatural ability as well, who takes on a deeply hostile former native American prostitute as assistant.  As Julius falls in love with the Ponca chief's daughter, he comes to occupy a strange and poignant position: having left Europe to escape anti-Semitic persecution, he effectively becomes a member of a nation itself on the verge of annihilation.  Golpan manages to combine deep historical knowledge with the capacity to share that knowledge with the reader in a way that is fresh and vivid, a bit like E.L. Doctorow.

Now for the disappointment: Magic Words is full of subplots and minor characters, every single one of them interesting.  But I suspect that Golpan wanted to write a 1,000-page novel and was asked to cut it down.  (for marketing purposes - who knows?)  The result is a book that often has an amputated feel.  Golpan's skill and the significance of the book's themes could have supported a longer text, and I think the results might have been stunning.  As it is, I still recommend it, and plan to read Golpan's next book.