wide western horizons, wide interior landscapes of the heart

books:


	• A Sudden Country: A Novel Karen Fisher Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 29 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Not a lightweight romance

If you're looking for a bodice-ripper, go in another direction. This is a serious, heavy, story with, at times, prose for narrative. Not all books are "easy reads" either in wording or subject matter. This novel is well worth the effort the reader must invest to understand each character.

Karen Fisher has captured, in my mind, the struggles and stark reality of life on the Oregon Trail. Her descriptions of even the mundane were tangible. Like other reviewers, I found myself re-reading passages not only for deeper understanding, but in sheer amazement of Fisher's way with words.

This novel is for those with an interest in history and in understanding what remains when all is stripped away in life. You might be surprised at the end.

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A Virtual Reality Experience of the Oregon Trail Migration.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this book--once I got into it. Israel and Lucy Mitchell and children are headed from Iowa to Oregon. Lucy does not want to go, but she gives in to her husband, who is a descendent of Daniel Boone and has the spirit of adventure in his blood. Along the way they meet James McLaren, a man grieving the abandonment of his wife and the loss by death of his 3 children. He consents to drive one of the Mitchell's wagons. A predictable romance springs up between Lucy and James. The bulk of the story covers the daily grind of the trip in an extremely interesting way. The author's style of writing was a little hard to get used to, however. At times I found myself rereading several passages to try to get the meaning that was not readily evident. All is all, it was a great story.

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wide western horizons, wide interior landscapes of the heart

Karen Fisher's novel is meticulously written; each word is weighed and pondered. Each page is rich, so that the reader will want to slow down and read carefully to savor the beauty of the writing.

An imaginative take on the life of Fisher's ancestor Emma Slavin, this novel chronicles the Oregon trail journey of 11 year old Emma and her family. The book is an unusual blend of workaday life in 1847 for the emigrants---biscuits to be made every day, although the kitchen is an open campfire and the dining room is outside under broad western skies---and of the interior life of the heart of Emma's mother Lucy, a widow who has remarried although still grieving her young husband. Her first marriage had been a passionate love match, but her second marriage, to the practical, ambitious Israel Mitchell, is of a different nature.

When Lucy meets trapper James MacLaren, who is grieving the loss of his family, his children to smallpox and his Nez Perce wife to another trapper, they are taken by surprise by the feelings that quickly overtake them both.

Fisher's novel overcomes the "Harlequin romance" genre through her perceptive, articulate prose, and the constant juxtaposition of kneading biscuits and hearts in need.

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reviews: 1, page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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