A symmetrical desert scene
Eli Cash
Novelist. Revisionist Historian. Not a Tenenbaum.

Selected Works

Old Custer
Old Custer
A Novel by Eli Cash
The breakthrough novel. A revisionist western that dares to ask the one question no historian had the courage to ask.
"Well, everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn. What this book presupposes is... maybe he didn't."
"Wildly, ludicrously entertaining." — The New York Times
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The Other Alamo
The Other
Alamo
A Novel by
Eli Cash
The Other Alamo
A Novel by Eli Cash
A revisionist account of the Battle of the Alamo told from the perspective of the building itself. The Alamo narrates in first person.
"Everyone thinks the Alamo fell. But what if it was pushed."
"Astonishing. I couldn't put it down. I also couldn't pick it up." — Jonathan Franzen
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Wildcat
Wildcat
A Novel by
Eli Cash
Wildcat
A Novel by Eli Cash
An oil wildcatter in 1920s Texas who may or may not have been a woman. 800 pages. The gender question is never resolved.
"This is less a book about petroleum and more a book about thirst."
"I finished it and immediately forgot everything about it. But in a good way?" — Zadie Smith
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Sacagawea's Husband
Sacagawea's
Husband
A Novel by
Eli Cash
Sacagawea's Husband
A Novel by Eli Cash
A 700-page novel about the man who married Sacagawea. Sacagawea does not appear in the book. Not once.
"This is a love story. She's just not in it. That's what makes it so painful."
Named one of Esquire's "Books We're Not Sure About" for 2003
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Manifest Destiny: A Cookbook
Manifest
Destiny:
A Cookbook
A Novel by
Eli Cash
Manifest Destiny: A Cookbook
A Novel by Eli Cash
It is not a cookbook. A wagon train gets lost and starts ranking meals they remember from back east. No recipes.
"I wanted to explore hunger. Not metaphorical hunger. Real hunger. But also metaphorical hunger."
"I read it on a plane and had to be asked twice if I was okay." — Dave Eggers
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Revolver Country
Revolver
Country
A Novel by
Eli Cash
Revolver Country
A Novel by Eli Cash
His "departure" novel. A gunsmith builds a weapon so perfect he refuses to sell it. Eli has no connection to gunsmithing or Montana.
"This is my most personal work. I can't tell you why. It just is."
"Cash writes about guns the way other men write about women. Troublingly." — The Atlantic
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The Forty-Niner Who Stayed Home
The Forty-Niner
Who Stayed
Home
A Novel by
Eli Cash
The Forty-Niner Who Stayed Home
A Novel by Eli Cash
About a man in Missouri who hears about the Gold Rush and simply doesn't go. 600 pages. Nothing happens.
"We always celebrate the people who went west. Nobody asks about the guy on the porch."
Longlisted for the Pulitzer. The committee later said this was "an administrative error."
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Geronimo Slept Here
Geronimo
Slept Here
A Speculative History by
Eli Cash
Geronimo Slept Here
A Speculative History by Eli Cash
A speculative history tracing every place Geronimo allegedly slept, including several Holiday Inns that didn't exist yet.
"History isn't about where people were. It's about where they would have been."
Banned in Arizona. Eli calls this "the best review I ever got."
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Old Custer II: Custer Rides Again
Old Custer II:
Custer
Rides Again
A Novel by
Eli Cash
Old Custer II: Custer Rides Again
A Novel by Eli Cash
His widely panned sequel. Custer survives Little Bighorn and opens a haberdashery in Cincinnati.
"The first book asked if he died. This one asks... what if he sold hats."
"No." — The New Yorker, full review
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Old Custer III: The Custering
Old Custer III:
The Custering
A Novel by
Eli Cash
Old Custer III: The Custering
A Novel by Eli Cash
Published against the wishes of his editor, agent and several close friends. Custer is now alive in the 1970s running a discotheque.
"People say you can't write a third book about a man who died in 1876. I say that's exactly how many books you can write about him."
Remainder bins nationwide within two weeks. Eli buys 4,000 copies himself.
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Peyote Sundown
Peyote
Sundown
A Novel by
Eli Cash
Peyote Sundown
A Novel by Eli Cash
Eli's "desert period" novel. A cattle rancher discovers mescaline and spends 400 pages describing the color brown.
"I didn't write this book. The desert wrote it. I just held the pen. And did a moderate amount of mescaline."
"We are choosing not to review this." — Kirkus Reviews
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The Eli Cash Story, by Eli Cash
The Eli Cash
Story
An Autobiographical Experience by
Eli Cash
Eli Cash: The Eli Cash Story, by Eli Cash
An Autobiographical Experience
Marketed as his autobiography. Actually about a fictional rancher named Eliandro Cashington who bears no resemblance to Eli.
"People say write what you know. I know myself. But I also thought... what if I didn't."
"I cannot tell if this man is a genius or if something is wrong." — Michiko Kakutani
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About the Author

Eli Cash is the bestselling author of Old Custer, Wildcat and ten other works of fiction (and one autobiography he insists is also fiction). His debut — which dared to presuppose that General George Armstrong Custer did not, in fact, die at Little Bighorn — was a critical sensation and established Cash as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary American letters.

Cash has been called "a revisionist with nothing left to revise" by The Atlantic and "the only novelist I know who wears spurs to readings" by Jonathan Franzen. He divides his time between a ranch in the Texas Hill Country that he purchased sight unseen and a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side where he does the actual writing.

He is not a Tenenbaum.

Eli Cash, New York City
Eli Cash, New York City
The Sunday Magazine Section
The Sunday Magazine, January 2003