"Cold Mountain" does The Oregon Trail

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

The Great Journey

Karen Fisher writes about the Frontier West with such vividness and authenticity one might believe she actually lived back then and has been reincarnated. Another rare skill the author possesses is the ability to depict male and female characters with equal force and finesse. Lucy Mitchell and James MacLaren are unforgettable protagonists. The journey they embark on is spellbinding. It is fraught with a tension so intense and exquisite one can only marvel at the storytelling skills of this great new writer. If you enjoyed 'Cold Mountain' then you'll love 'A Sudden Country'.

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"Cold Mountain" does The Oregon Trail

If you liked "Cold Mountain" you'll like "A Sudden Country". If you didn't, you won't. I didn't but can't say that either book was bad, just that I'd never read them again or recommend either one. So, this review will only help you if you've read "Cold Mountain"

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Good story -- Style got in the way

There is a lot to like about this book -- the narrative, the sweep of events, the effective capture of the arduous trek West, the evocation of the landscape, and the depiction of 19th century European-Americans as strangers in a strange land.

However, I agree with the reviewer who found himself/herself having to stop and reread previous paragraphs in order to understand them; I found myself doing the same thing early on, though I eventually got used to it.

Every so often, this "poetic," telegraphic style is effective, but you can see the author working at creating an effect. Basically, the novelist is no Annie Proulx and it shows.

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Fiction or Fact??

For a first novel, it is superb. Karen Fisher's writing skills take a little getting used to but actually are elegant. Her subject choice came from actual papers (how lucky) & she is related to the people she is writing about, i.e., Emma Ruth is her great (unk #) grandmother & she is also the fictional character in the book....how can you mix them up like that? What the author has indeed done then is decide to make an adulterer out of the first Emma's mother, who is actually a real person in history. Not very kind if all you are trying to do is get a little spice into the book. Also, she made MacLaren almost a second main character and then had to dispose of him at the end. That is such a downer when an author kills off a main character. If I was to agree with any reviewer, it would perhaps be the Review by the lady from the Washington Post.

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

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