In Texas—a seemingly mythical land where a man can still find a moment of peace (when he isn’t worrying about the assault weapons being flouted by nearby open-carry advocates) and every month is Texas Truck Month—they like their stories epic. Preferably to the point where the Lone Star State functions as a microcosm of the entire American experience—and it oughta, considering that Texas accounts for 7 percent of the United States’ landmass and 8 percent of its population. At least that’s the aim of The Son, a Pulitzer Prize-shortlisted novel by Guggenheim fellow Philipp Meyer (not that anyone in Texas is impressed with your fancy prizes or fellowships) that traces the history of the so-called “American Century” through the rise and fall of one Texan oil dynasty. You know, like Dallas or The Spoils Of Babylon or, heck, Dynasty—if the last of those three was set in Texas instead of Denver, that godforsaken mountain town with its purple-mountain baseball team and completely legalized, ever-present halo of reefer smoke.