The Captured - by Scott Zesch (Paperback)

About the Book

The author's great-great-great uncle was 10 when he was kidnapped by Plains Indians, living for three years their rough, nomadic existence and becoming a fierce warrior. Never readjusting to white society, he spent his last years in a cave. Zesch pens a riveting history of Indian abduction and those who survived it.

Book Synopsis

"A carefully written, well-researched contribution to Western history -- and to a promising new genre: the anthropology of the stolen." - Kirkus Reviews

On New Year's Day in 1870, ten-year-old Adolph Korn was kidnapped by an Apache raiding party. Traded to Comanches, he thrived in the rough, nomadic existence, quickly becoming one of the tribe's fiercest warriors. Forcibly returned to his parents after three years, Korn never adjusted to life in white society. He spent his last years in a cave, all but forgotten by his family.

That is, until Scott Zesch stumbled over his own great-great-great uncle's grave. Determined to understand how such a "good boy" could have become Indianized so completely, Zesch travels across the west, digging through archives, speaking with Comanche elders, and tracking eight other child captives from the region with hauntingly similar experiences. With a historians rigor and a novelist's eye, Zesch's The Captured paints a vivid portrait of life on the Texas frontier, offering a rare account of captivity.

About the Author

Scott Zesch grew up in Mason County, Texas and graduated from Texas A&M University and Harvard Law School. He is the author of the novel Alamo Heights, and he is the winner of the Western History Association's Ray Allen Billington Award. He divides his time between New York City and a ranch in Art, Texas (population 3).