Review-The Indifferent Stars Above, The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride

The Indifferent Stars Above
The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride
by Daniel James Brown
William Morrow
June 2009
$24.99, HC, 320pp,
320pp, 978-0-06-13410-5








You think you have heard it all before, until you read the account of Sarah Graves and her bold decision to face the uncertain future with her new husband, Jay Fosdick. Imagine yourself at twenty one ready with hope and promise for a better life. In 1846, to pack up and prepare to travel overland, mostly walking takes tremendous stamina and backbone.

Sarah’s voice narrates this historically rich account as she begins with naive eyes. She and her husband have loaded a covered wagon filled with everything they believe they will need. It’s not as easy as you think as she conveys preparations required for the trip. Housewares, furniture, clothes and all the food necessary, force an incredible burden of weight for the ox to pull. They will have to walk most of the way to conserve the strength of the beast.

They are emigrants filled with enthusiasm and a purpose to buy land, build a home and settle the west. They believe their destiny is hopeful, but destiny will fail them. Star-crossed from the beginning they set out and then join up with a group of travelers, known by the leader as the Donner Party. The famous story of the Donner Party is an event famous in American History.

Sarah’s story details the horrific and terrifying journey of physical survival with that ill fated group. The journey that pushed everyone to their limits of personal endurance. A journey that conjured up ethical actions too sinister to even comprehend.

Unfortunately, a guide by the name of Lansford Hastings posed a shortcut that proved to be anything but. It was virtually impassable and only benefited the greed and the potential profit for Hastings and a business associate. This decision ended up being only one of the many bad luck choices the Donner Party attempted.

The history of the Donner Party experiences in the vicious winter of 1846 that dumped record snowfalls in the Sierra Nevada mountains has been told in numerous historical accounts. The author has done extensive research evident from his prodigious rich bibliography. He credits the first serious account of the Donner Party was written by C. F. McGlashan in 1879 from first person correspondence, called The History of the Donner Party. The published work will include an eight page black and white insert.

Brown’s account of the event is not just a history of a timeline of events, but a compassionate oral history and deeply moving story of the human element. He explains and backs up medical conditions such as hypothermia and hyperthermia with scientific data and references. His analysis and explanations of why and how specific behavioral and physical changes occur adds keen insight.

In his epilogue he writes an account of his personal journey that he mapped and followed to get a feel from a first hand exploration of the difficulty they faced. He cautions his eyes are from the 21st century perspective with no comparison to the suffering of the Donner Party. Steep climbs and difficult terrain cause him to become breathless. He says, “My God, I thought, those people were tough.”

Another time he is mesmerized by the untouchable beauty of a breathtaking panoramic scene. It is a mirror of what caught Mary Ann Graves attention as she stopped to gaze on this same distant landscape, an etherial visual experience that surpassed any suffering for that moment. On some level the spiritual heals the physical, or perhaps suffering becomes a supplicant to the blinding beauty.

Daniel James Brown’s history The Indifferent Stars Above is a story of hope and faith. It is the story of chance and risk taking and submission to temptation. It is a story of perseverance and surrender. The Donner Party has come to be synonymous with a group of cannibal survivalists who resorted to despicable atrocities and murder. Details in this account prove otherwise. Brown has humanized a history of the Donner Party unseen before in the voice and compassionate retelling through one of its ordinary survivors who proved to be extraordinary. Brown’s writing is novelistic history, accurate historical non-fiction with readable storytelling.

Brown’s unique style has rich depth as he wraps the context in history like a cocoon of importance around the main event. His contrast between the advances in technology and society in the eastern United States versus the hardship, suffering and pain in the West is an ironic juxtaposition. Brown’s history is as gripping as a suspenseful thriller. A special star above the competition. Highly recommended.







For another perspective please see Hoyden's Look at Literature

Review-Every Boat Turns South, by J.P.White

Every Boat Turns South
By J. P. White
Permanent Press
240 pages
1-57962-188-0
September 2009


Every Boat Turns South Every Boat Turns South is the story of two brothers. Hale the shining star with all the promise a parent could hope for and Matt his younger brother who lives in his shadow. One night ignoring his intuition, Matt follows his brother on a trip even though he feels a sense of foreboding. The dye is cast and the fate of Hale is sealed when the clandestine plan suddenly backfires.

Unable to cope with the memory of his brother and the circumstances of his death Matt disappears. Three years later, Matt arrives on his parents’ doorstep looking like “something the raccoons forgot to eat.” He carries with him more baggage than the two plastic bags in tow with a readiness to unload his guilt. His father Skip is a skeleton of his former self. He is dying a result of congestive heart failure. He has tenaciously held on, unable to give up the ship.

There is little doubt that his mom loathes rather than loves him for Matt has come home to tell Skip what really happened to Hale that night. He has come home to tell Skip about his adventurous trek of escape and survival.

This may appear to some as a simple story of an adventurous drifter running from a lot of guilt and memories over his brother’s disappearance. However, it is more than simple, it is complex, an intricate composition of themes that twist around each other as you follow the undulating currents. The book is written in alternating narratives, one is Matt talking to his father, and the other is Matt’s journal or captain’s log. The characters never appear to be who they are, adding more mystery and intrigue. “ And sometimes I have seen what men have thought they saw.”

White’s compass rose takes you on a meandering voyage that will keep you guessing until the last sail south. The poetic lyrical motion of White’s writing is spiritually uplifting with a lilting cadence. Reading is an effortless indulgence as his prose embraces the reader. With the skill of an artisan in Venice his imagery is precise beauty on paper intended to captivate the audience.


Highly recommended.