Lone Women by Victor Lavalle

 

The plot in brief:

Adelaide Henry has a secret--a dark family secret she keeps locked in a large steamer trunk. If it gets out, people will die. Like her parents. Which is why she had to leave California. She heads to Big Sandy, Montana not only because it is far away and no one knows her there, but because in 1915, Montana is one of the only places that will give land to a single woman to homestead. Even to a black woman like Adelaide. 

My thoughts:

I don't know why, but I thought this book was going to be a darker, supernatural horror story. It's not. There is a supernatural element in it, but it's more about Adelaide and other lone women like her trying to make a life for themselves in the American West than anything else. And I was underwhelmed by what emerged from the locked steamer trunk. But maybe that's because Lavalle wasn't going for eerie and atmospheric with his writing; his prose is strong, but more straightforward. He does an excellent job of capturing the time period and depicting the setting and the lives of Adelaide and the other women. And the story is interesting. I was just hoping for suspenseful and chilling. So I didn't end up loving this one, but I would still recommend it. 

Happy Reading!

One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus

 

This is a historical fiction novel set in the American West in the 1870s. It is the story of May Dodd, a well-bred young lady who agrees to become one of a thousand Cheyenne brides in order to escape the asylum where her father placed her when she fell in love with an unsuitable man. 

"But now that we have actually embarked upon this journey, our future is so uncertain, and so unknown, it is impossible not to have misgivings. How ironic that in order to escape the lunatic asylum I have had to embark upon the most insane undertaking of my life."

"I am rather accustomed to doing the unconventional, the unpopular... Frankly, from the way I have been treated by the so-called 'civilized' people in my life, I rather look forward to residency among the savages."

"As I look around the circle of this tipi, even the chokingly close walls of my old room at the asylum suddenly seem in memory to be somehow comforting, familiar...a square, solid room with four walls... but, no, these thoughts I banish. I live in a new world, on a new earth, among new people. Courage!"

Jim Fergus does an excellent job of immersing the reader in the past, detailing that time period, and the Cheyenne people and their way of life, and their continuing conflict with the American government despite their white wives. But it's the women who are at the heart of this novel. It's told through the journals and letters of May Dodd, a very independent and memorable character. My one complaint is that sometimes her letters overlap with her journal entries and end up repeating the same information. But that's a small thing. Overall, this book is both a compelling and very heartbreaking read. I'm grateful to Sam at Book Chase who first introduced me to Fergus's trilogy. 

Happy Reading!

Similar read:

Ride the Wind by Lucia St. Clair Robson (which is based on the true story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her life with the Comanche)