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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
I'm a big fan of the frontier narrative, especially from the women's perspective, so of course this hit the spot. A woman, fiery and independent, volunteers to transport 4 others, who've lost their minds for various reasons, back east. At the last minute, she enlists a criminal to join her. I felt like i was punched in the gut more than once and left a bit disoriented,but in a good way. It seemed to me that the last chapter was unnecessary, though.
Wow... Excellent story about how things were not easy on women in the pioneer days. I felt I got a much better grasp of how hard it could be from this novel. I loved the nuanced handling of the characters. Very few people where completely good or bad. Everyone had many facets to them. The variations in the husbands's feeling and reactions to their wives breakdowns really added to the story. My only real complaint is Mary Bee Cuddy hanging herself was a shocker. I did not see her throwing herself at Briggs and then hanging herself and I am still not sure how I feel about it. Maybe if I view her throwing herself at him as the first big sign she had lost it?
I hadn't heard of this book until I saw it listed as an upcoming movie adaptation. The author evokes the unforgiving frontier as well as the effect on it's women that is both powerful and gripping. I'll be checking out more of Swarthout's work and looking forward to the movie.
A weak structure made this book rather frustrating. The main character dies (inexplicably) about 2/3 in, and then the remaining characters kind of mull about pointlessly for the last 2.5 (of 7) discs (I read it in audiobook form). Finishing it was really boring, because I just didn't care about the character the author clung to after his story was over.
The beginning was promising, and the middle suggested the author was going to try to do something interesting, but I guess that looked too hard. Maybe the contract has some kind of word count requirement so the author had to drag stuff out?
The beginning was promising, and the middle suggested the author was going to try to do something interesting, but I guess that looked too hard. Maybe the contract has some kind of word count requirement so the author had to drag stuff out?
I was deeply moved by this book.
It's a gritty, hard-nosed tale, full of hardship, trials, and collapse. Yet, it's also about love and service and duty. The fact that women (and I'm sure men, too) were driven out of their minds on the barren frontier, especially trying to survive the bleak and frigid winters of the Midwest.
I first read about this reality many years ago in "Giants in the Earth" by Ole Edvart Rølvaag's classic Norweigian-American immigration novel set in the Dakotas. There too, the mother loses a daughter (who was hungry and ate a raw potato with eyes) and, already miserably lonesome and homesick, finally loses her ability to cope and falls apart.
"The Homesman" captures the odd characters drawn West and thrown together in the 1850s who must journey Eastward to find support for the four addled wives who can't take it any more. Mary Bee and George awkwardly team up to lead the expedition through weather challenges, Indian threats, a kidnapping and rejections by other travelers. This novel explores how life demands both toughness and tenderness, and how we often misjudge one another, even as we are forced to depend on our companions.
It's a gritty, hard-nosed tale, full of hardship, trials, and collapse. Yet, it's also about love and service and duty. The fact that women (and I'm sure men, too) were driven out of their minds on the barren frontier, especially trying to survive the bleak and frigid winters of the Midwest.
I first read about this reality many years ago in "Giants in the Earth" by Ole Edvart Rølvaag's classic Norweigian-American immigration novel set in the Dakotas. There too, the mother loses a daughter (who was hungry and ate a raw potato with eyes) and, already miserably lonesome and homesick, finally loses her ability to cope and falls apart.
"The Homesman" captures the odd characters drawn West and thrown together in the 1850s who must journey Eastward to find support for the four addled wives who can't take it any more. Mary Bee and George awkwardly team up to lead the expedition through weather challenges, Indian threats, a kidnapping and rejections by other travelers. This novel explores how life demands both toughness and tenderness, and how we often misjudge one another, even as we are forced to depend on our companions.
emotional
The book is a brutal telling about the hardships of frontier life and having seen the film first I see how Tommy Lee Jones was inspired to turn this into a movie. The film mirrors the book faithfully.
Glendon Swarthout is best known for his western classic “The Shootist,” a novel that eventually became actor John Wayne’s last film. But now that Swarthout’s equally powerful western, “The Homesman,” is being filmed (and directed by Tommy Lee Jones), this 1988 novel is being given new life – thankfully so, because I missed it the first time around.
“The Homesman” explores an aspect of American western migratory history that is seldom considered: what happened to those 1850s settlers who suffered mental breakdowns under the extreme conditions common to their new environment and lifestyle. This was especially the case for those women, already isolated from everything and everyone they left behind, who lost one or more children to disease or accident. Who would care for them if they could not care for themselves?
The research Swarthout conducted in Nebraska gave him the answers he sought. Mentally ill men are likely to have died of exposure, disease, or death at the hands of fellow settlers who felt threatened by their presence. Women suffering mental illness, on the other hand, were not treated so harshly. It was more likely that husbands made arrangements to have their wives transported back east to family or institutions that could care for them for the rest of their lives. The tragedy of four of these women having to be removed from their families and carried back across the Missouri River for care serves as the premise of “The Homesman” (“homesman” being the term for the man chosen to escort the women eastward).
In the case of these particular women, however, when no man, including their own husbands, is willing to make that dangerous trek, the job falls to a woman volunteer, one Mary Bee Cuddy. The determined Mary Bee is perhaps the only woman who would even have had a small chance to get the four women home safely on her own. But, despite the fact that the four husbands are perfectly content to see their wives set out without a male escort, Mary Bee knows that she needs help if she and the women are to survive the trip – and she finds that help in the person of a claim jumper she coerces into accompanying her.
When first published in 1988, “The Homesman” won both major awards annually given to the best western novels of the year: the Western Heritage Wrangler Award and the Spur Award granted by the Western Writers of America. It is easy to see why.
“The Homesman” explores an aspect of American western migratory history that is seldom considered: what happened to those 1850s settlers who suffered mental breakdowns under the extreme conditions common to their new environment and lifestyle. This was especially the case for those women, already isolated from everything and everyone they left behind, who lost one or more children to disease or accident. Who would care for them if they could not care for themselves?
The research Swarthout conducted in Nebraska gave him the answers he sought. Mentally ill men are likely to have died of exposure, disease, or death at the hands of fellow settlers who felt threatened by their presence. Women suffering mental illness, on the other hand, were not treated so harshly. It was more likely that husbands made arrangements to have their wives transported back east to family or institutions that could care for them for the rest of their lives. The tragedy of four of these women having to be removed from their families and carried back across the Missouri River for care serves as the premise of “The Homesman” (“homesman” being the term for the man chosen to escort the women eastward).
In the case of these particular women, however, when no man, including their own husbands, is willing to make that dangerous trek, the job falls to a woman volunteer, one Mary Bee Cuddy. The determined Mary Bee is perhaps the only woman who would even have had a small chance to get the four women home safely on her own. But, despite the fact that the four husbands are perfectly content to see their wives set out without a male escort, Mary Bee knows that she needs help if she and the women are to survive the trip – and she finds that help in the person of a claim jumper she coerces into accompanying her.
When first published in 1988, “The Homesman” won both major awards annually given to the best western novels of the year: the Western Heritage Wrangler Award and the Spur Award granted by the Western Writers of America. It is easy to see why.
This is my very first review on Goodreads, I usually don't write them but this book rubbed me so much the wrong way I couldn't help but write one.
The book is very engaging and readable, thus the 2 stars. However, it is touted as an examination of pioneer life from the usually unheard voices of women (which is exactly why I was intrigued to read it in the first place) yet the author's portrayal of these woman seems to undo the very flattery he (supposedly) meant to give them. This book was clearly written by a man, despite his claim to be sensitive to female perspectives. It left a very bad taste in my mouth.
The book is very engaging and readable, thus the 2 stars. However, it is touted as an examination of pioneer life from the usually unheard voices of women (which is exactly why I was intrigued to read it in the first place) yet the author's portrayal of these woman seems to undo the very flattery he (supposedly) meant to give them. This book was clearly written by a man, despite his claim to be sensitive to female perspectives. It left a very bad taste in my mouth.