One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd

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One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84 · rating details · 40,168 ratings · 4,178 reviews

One Thousand White Women is the story of May Dodd and a colorful assembly of pioneer women who, under the auspices of the U.S. government, travel to the western prairies in 1875 to intermarry among the Cheyenne Indians. The covert and controversial "Brides for Indians" program, launched by the administration of Ulysses S. Grant, is intended to help assimilate the Indians i...more

Paperback, 302 pages

Published February 15th 1999 by St. Martin's Griffin (first published January 1st 1998)

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Jan 12, 2009 Daniel rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club, 2009

Dear May Dodd,

I received your letter of 20 January 1876, accompanied by portions of your journal, and, in short, I'm not falling for it. They sound like they were written sometime in the 1990s, and probably by a man. While I found many reasons to come to this conclusion, the biggest giveaways were your obsession with penis size and the fact that your signature was followed by an AOL e-mail address.

Sincerely,
Disgruntled Reader

OK, that was a bit harsh and if for some reason Mr. Fergus is reading t...more Dear May Dodd,

I received your letter of 20 January 1876, accompanied by portions of your journal, and, in short, I'm not falling for it. They sound like they were written sometime in the 1990s, and probably by a man. While I found many reasons to come to this conclusion, the biggest giveaways were your obsession with penis size and the fact that your signature was followed by an AOL e-mail address.

Sincerely,
Disgruntled Reader

OK, that was a bit harsh and if for some reason Mr. Fergus is reading this review, I want to say to him: I didn't completely dislike "One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd," and I give you credit for trying to adopt the viewpoint of not just a woman, but a woman from more than a century ago. That took balls. Unfortunately for your readers, those balls weren't backed up by brains.

While Fergus obviously did a lot of research to learn about the culture of the Cheyenne nation and other Indian tribes -- he even shows his work by giving us a bibliography -- he completely fails to transport his readers back to an earlier time. That's the most basic requirement of any historical novel. Few pages go by in which Fergus doesn't attribute to May Dodd words and ideas that would be completely foreign to any woman living in the 1870s -- even a woman as progressive as May is supposed to be. For most of the novel, May sounds less like a 19th century woman of any background or educational level, and more like a Volvo-driving Web designer from San Francisco who's on her way to pick up her daughter at soccer practice, has to drop her off at the ex-husband's for his weekend visitation, and then, before going to her newly purchased fixer-upper in the Mission District, plans to stop by the polling place to vote for Dianne Feinstein.

Small examples: May repeatedly refers to another character as an "amateur ethnographer," describes herself as being "agnostic" when it comes to religion, characterizes herself as being as "big as a house" when pregnant, and says that a woman who ends her pregnancy "aborted" the baby. These are simply not words or ideas that any woman living in the 1870s would use, and especially not as casually as she does. This may sound like nitpicking, but there's never a point in the whole book in which even the most forgiving reader could honestly say to herself, "This can't possibly be a novel. He must have actually found May Dodd's lost journals from the 1870s." And yet that's what we the readers are apparently expected to do, at least according to Fergus's "Reading Group Gold" notes in the back of the edition I read.

There are other annoyances too. Many of the characters are given cutesy names that reflect their personalities and interests. The woman who studies and paints birds is named, unsurprisingly, Helen Flight, while a self-important and prudish character is, naturally, Narcissa White, and a dainty Southern belle is, wait for it, Daisy Lovelace. And, aside from giving characters lines and viewpoints that feel anachronistic, Fergus also makes passing reference to things that simply didn't exist in the 1870s. Hey, Jim, there was no Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra in 1875. Even the city's earliest such orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, wasn't formed until 16 years later. (Thanks, Wikipedia.) If you're trying to really make us believe we're reading a recovered journal, this is not the way to do it. Why not just give the Indian chief a BlackBerry, and President Ulysses S. Grant a subscription to Us Weekly?

All right, I've been nasty enough. There is a reason I gave "One Thousand White Women" two stars instead of one. Aside from the anachronisms, the book is reasonably well-written, and the story is compelling and relatively fast-paced. That makes up for some of the novel's faults. But you know what would have made the novel ten times better? Given that we're supposed to be reading the journals of a woman who's first diagnosed as insane, and then becomes a bride to an Indian chief under a secret government program, why come right out and reveal to your readers that she wasn't actually crazy and really did join a Cheyenne tribe? Why not leave it an open question, and let your readers decide for themselves whether the program was real or May Dodd was just nuts? That, perhaps, would make for a better novel.

On a side note, it was interesting to read Fergus's novel right after finishing Daniel Defoe's "Moll Flanders," and less than a year after reading Larry McMurtry's "Telegraph Days." What do the three have in common? Each novel is told from a woman's point, was written by a man, and focuses on a woman who are far more liberated and self-directed than her female contemporaries. While McMurtry's book was not a lot better than Fergus's (though it was a lot more fun), neither of them should even be mentioned in the same sentence as "Moll Flanders." (Oops.) It's impossible to imagine either one being widely read almost three centuries from now, as Defoe's 1722 novel is today.(less)

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Dec 27, 2007 Sara rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: unfinished, historical-fiction, 20th-century-fiction

This is somewhat erroneously in my "read" shelf. I did not finish reading it, so keep that in mind as far as this review goes. I applaud the author's project - historical fiction disguised as history proper (I tend to love things like that), it is a well-researched story told via the faux journals of a 19th-century white woman who went to live among the Cherokee. My problem with this book is essentially that I did not ever buy the voice in which it is told - this problem has two tiers: First, it...more

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May 01, 2010 Hazel rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, regrets-i-ve-had-a-few

I like historical fiction. I appreciate writers who take the time to research their stories well. I like to think that I'm catching up on some of the history I missed as the same time as enjoying a good read. I like journals and memoirs. And I jump at the chance to see history from the perspective of those who are usually written out of the history books. So I was quite enthusiastic when I heard about this novel which is written in the form of the journal of a nineteenth-century Yankee woman liv...more

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Jul 23, 2008 cherishwit rated it 4 of 5 stars

Quite a good read.

From Booklist, by Grace Fill

An American western with a most unusual twist, this is an imaginative fictional account of the participation of May Dodd and others in the controversial "Brides for Indians" program, a clandestine U.S. government^-sponsored program intended to instruct "savages" in the ways of civilization and to assimilate the Indians into white culture through the offspring of these unions. May's personal journals, loaded with humor and intelligent reflection, de...more

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Sep 13, 2007 MacDuff rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who can overlook history

Shelves: booksreadin2007

This book was really disappointing.

The premise begins with a re-telling of the proposed "Brides for Indians" pact that went on in 1854, when a whole host of Cheyenne Native Americans came into DC and asked for 1000 white women to take back to the prairie. Their idea was that by impregnating the women, they'd put the Native American seed into Caucasian culture and thus assimilate it.

Ok, so that never happened. But for Jim Fergus, he lets his imagination roll with the idea that it did. Enter May...more This book was really disappointing.

The premise begins with a re-telling of the proposed "Brides for Indians" pact that went on in 1854, when a whole host of Cheyenne Native Americans came into DC and asked for 1000 white women to take back to the prairie. Their idea was that by impregnating the women, they'd put the Native American seed into Caucasian culture and thus assimilate it.

Ok, so that never happened. But for Jim Fergus, he lets his imagination roll with the idea that it did. Enter May Dodd, a woman who fell in love with a guy who worked for her father and was (obviously) below her station in life. Institutionalized for promiscuity after she gives birth to two children, May is eligible for the Brides program because she is obviously fertile.

I really thought that I was going to like this book, and be able to read it over a weekend. Instead, factual misrepresentation totally got the best of me. Dates are just wrong. I can't imagine what Fergus' editor was doing when he sent in this book. For instance, there's this point where Dodd, who is writing in 1874/75, mentioned the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The CSO was begun in 1891. I hate to ask people to look up these references, but please.

Also problematic is Fergus' idea of what thoughts went through women's heads in the mid-1800s. Apparently, women were spritely, not afraid to stand up for themselves, and spoke out in crowds of men. I wouldn't call myself a traditionalist, but at the very least give an accurate portrayal of what life was like for us back in 1874.

And finally, it just seems like the author wasn't paying any sort of attention to his character. For instance, May Dodd undergoes this "treatment" in the asylum for promiscuity. Her vagina is injected with boiling hot water at regular intervals. She is also raped repeatedly by the orderlies. However, she gets out of the institution and is sleeping with a man almost immediately. It just isn't believable.

In another passage, May recounts how she and a few of the other brides have totally given up their Western attire for Native American clothing. They don't even remember WHERE their skirts and blouses are. However, when one of them has the idea to hit the sweat lodge with the rest of the Native American men, they all pull out the cotton towel they packed for just this sort of instance. Again, it's just not believable.

In something like Phillippa Gregory's books, you can overcome any factual problems because you're reading a bodice ripper. While Fergus says right at the front of the book that this is a work of fiction, you still have to do your research. (less)

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Mar 31, 2012 Kkop12 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookclub

So I liked the entire book, especially the main character. However, I was a bit bummed by the end. And I even had a little trouble figuring out who the characters were in the final pages (lineage). But what a well written book. I had never read a book about Indians, and while I am sure it only scratched the surface of their customs and way of life, it did present a lot of information about them. In the end though, it was ironic that the main character was unable to identify with either the India...more

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Aug 12, 2012 Sandi *~The Pirate Wench~* rated it 5 of 5 stars

At a peace conference at Fort Laramie in 1854,a prominet northern Cheyenne Chief requested of the US army the gift of one thousand white women as brides for his young warriors. Although this was an actual historical event,the story of May Dodd and her journals is entirely a work of fiction by the author. The Cheyenne's request was not well received by the white authorities,and the peace conference collapsed and the Cheyenne's were actually sent home. The white women did not go. But in this novel...more At a peace conference at Fort Laramie in 1854,a prominet northern Cheyenne Chief requested of the US army the gift of one thousand white women as brides for his young warriors. Although this was an actual historical event,the story of May Dodd and her journals is entirely a work of fiction by the author. The Cheyenne's request was not well received by the white authorities,and the peace conference collapsed and the Cheyenne's were actually sent home. The white women did not go. But in this novel they do..and what if? What would have happened? The story begins with a remarkable woman named May Dodd who travels west into the unknown and marries the Chief of the Cheyenne Nation.
May Dodd tells her story through fictional diaries of the fate she left behind being committed to an insane asylum,having her babies taken away from her by her blueblood family for the "crime" of loving a man without marriage and beneath her station. May's only hope for freedom is to sign up to a secret goverment program where women from the "civilized" world become brides to the Cheyenne warriors. What follows is a breathtaking adventure of May Dodd,her brief but passionate romance with the gallant Army Captain John Bourke,her marriage to the great Chief Little Wolf and her conflict of being caught between not only two worlds but loving two men and living two lives.
What I liked about this story,was May Dodd was an increditable woman living in her time and the author did a splendid job writing from the perspective of a woman with such credibility told through her journals. There was enough historical backdrop/details without it becoming "over-detailed" so that it took away from the story/characters. The secondary characters(the women May traveled with) was also well done and balanced so that they too werent distracting from May's story, and the bond that grew with these women was also neatly woven within the telling.
When I picked up this book,I thought it would be a "dry as the prairie" that they traveled on kinda book. Not so! A fantastic tale of the Old West and the Native American Indians,a surperb tale of sorrow,loss,sacrifice,suspence,love and triumph. And it's not often when a book leaves this reader eagerly waiting to turn the next page to find out what will happen next. Highly recommend this book and Im looking forward to this authors other book

The Wild Girl

Edit to review: Due to the historical time period this story was set in
and although not in graphic detail,there are scenes of violence,rape and other subject matter that may not appeal to some readers.(less)

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Sep 15, 2008 Kiri rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, bookcrossing, history, 2010, reviewed

A well written and lively "alter-verse" (if you will) Historical Fiction re-telling of the proposed "Brides for Indians" pact of September 1874, when the heads of the Cheyenne tribes, including Chief Little Wolf (the Sweet Medicine Chief) and others, journeyed to Washington D.C. with a proposal for President Ulysses S. Grant. They presented their plan to give the government one thousand horses in exchange for one thousand white women. Hoping to end the fighting between the white man and Indians...more

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Jul 09, 2007 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The friend who loaned me this book raved about it, and I really trust her opinion. However, I just couldn't love this book. It is an interesting topic-it's based on a true bit of history, when the Native Americans and the U.S. were trying to integrate, and the Native Americans requested 1000 of American white women to help the process and have their children. Of course, Grant turned it down, but this book is a fictional account of what might have been. It was an extremely interesting idea, and I...more

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Jun 20, 2008 Lois rated it 4 of 5 stars

A fascinating look at life among the Cheyenne Indians in 1874 from the perspective of a white woman who is part of a US govt. program to assimilate the natives. The landscape is perfectly described and family and communal life is portrayed in great detail in a supposed journal with accompanying letters and bibliography. It appears to be well researched, but my problem with this kind of historical fiction is always wondering just how much IS true (were the Indians really THAT brutal?) The too-goo...more

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Feb 15, 2012 Sharon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1800-s, 1st-person-pov, keeper, native-american, not-for-wimps, spitfire, violence, post-civil-war, historical-western, favorite, fun-secondary-character-s, rape, reviewed, br-style-writing

5* Rating

If I didn’t know before hand that this book was a work of fiction, it would have been easy to think otherwise.

The Intro:

(1996) by J. Will Dodd, editor in chief of Chicago’s city magazine and great-grandson of the (h) May Dodd, writes very convincingly. Thru the years rumors had circulated within the ‘family’ about the “crazy woman”, born 1850, hospitalized at 23 for a nervous disorder, then died in the asylum in 1876. Ancestral insanity, an embarrassment, was a well kept hidden little...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Chaybyrd rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012

First let me say, it seems among GR readers that this book stinks. And I get the criticism, I do. However, I have to say that I found this an enjoyable read.

Yes, the voice of Ms. Dodd, our heroine, protagonist, would be feminist (well sort of pseudo feminist) - does sound more 20th Century and less like a believable 19th Century even 'modern' woman but honestly, it kind of made the book more readable to me. I have no interest in hearing a modern writer trying to trifle through old English in a...more

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Aug 21, 2008 Elizabeth rated it 1 of 5 stars

Recommended to Elizabeth by: Book Club

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I read this for book club and felt distracted by the quality of writing, and therefore unable to even entertain the implausible historical premise. Maybe that is my own shortcoming. I just have a difficult time buying into a "journal" which contains pages of dialogue and real time events, and a voice that constantly contradicts itself and clearly belongs in a different century... but I tried to ignore this. As I read on, it became clear that while the author did his history homework, and has an...more I read this for book club and felt distracted by the quality of writing, and therefore unable to even entertain the implausible historical premise. Maybe that is my own shortcoming. I just have a difficult time buying into a "journal" which contains pages of dialogue and real time events, and a voice that constantly contradicts itself and clearly belongs in a different century... but I tried to ignore this. As I read on, it became clear that while the author did his history homework, and has an obvious acquaintance with American topography, he had great difficulty getting into the mind of a woman, let alone a 19th century woman! (i.e. gang raped and "fine" within a month or so, pregnant, yet walking/horseback-riding great distances without mention or concern of said pregnancy, blushing and giggling after losing one's virginity doggy-style, the list goes on...) I found his stereotypes to be tiresome, and the whole story felt very contrived, particularly the relationships he "explores" throughout the novel (which in my opinion reach little to no depth). The caricatures he presents belong in a comedy, and while this novel has its humorous moments, it is ultimately a dramatic portrayal of the hardships of frontier life, and the clash between the spiritual but doomed Native Americans and the white man's Manifest Destiny.

It seems readers love most about the novel its heroine, May, for her brazen ways, fortitude in peril, and feminist ideals. Please. This character is being spoon fed to 21st century women readers. A much more likable, realistic, and complex version of this same character is Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody, who fits in perfectly in Peters' light-hearted, adventurous historical mysteries. And while Peabody would be the first to join the men for a whiskey and soda, contemplating the next "course of action," she would never, for her own amusement, make a mockery of a culture's ritualistic and spiritual traditions! Compared to the fully developed Peabody, May is a mere stick figure, propped up by the author in effort to sell his book. (less)

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Apr 12, 2008 Erica rated it 2 of 5 stars

Why did I read this book? Two words: book club.

Yes, after a lifetime of avoiding book clubs, perhaps its fitting that in my latest job one of my tasks is to lead a book club. And guess what the first title is?

On the plus side, it was a quick read. An amalgamation of cliches and trite characters (Noble Native Americans, uptight white people, a former slave who not only sings and dances good but is also the fastest runner in the tribe!), this is a basic tale of 1875, as the last Native Americans w...more

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Nov 25, 2007 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookclub

I have to agree with several of the previous reviewers... GREAT premise (exchange of 1,000 white women for peace - an offer actually made, but declined by Grant) and interesting insight into Native American culture. However, I had some of the same gripes as previous reviewers. For one, I thought the writing was very mediocre, it was abound with cliches. If the narrator referred to one more person being "rough around the edges" I was going to scream. Not to mention "he made my skin crawl." And, a...more

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Sep 09, 2007 Connie rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book started with an interesting premise: what if 1,000 white women became brides of Cheyenne Indians still living the nomadic life in the 1860s, just before they were forced to live on the reservation.

Strengths: interesting exploration of how people adapt to a completely different culture and way of life.

Weaknesses: 1) Some of the characters come off as stereotypes, the racist southern belle jilted at the altar, the Irish girls who are big drinkers and gamblers, the black runaway slave who...more

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Jul 23, 2008 Rachel rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: no one

I fear I'm going to be overly harsh on this book. First, this book took me 3 months to read, which is nearly unheard of, especially for ~300 pages. I kept wanting to just stop reading, but I wanted to finish it so I could say I finished it.
The basic story of the book I think is intriguing and could be the basis for a really good book if done correctly. I just think the author missed terribly here. The book is bogged down by dialogue, and crappy dialogue at that. He felt it necessary to write con...more

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Jan 10, 2009 Chellis rated it 1 of 5 stars

If this book was not assigned to me for my book club, I wouldn't have wasted my time to read it. Not only is Fergus' novel, overly sentimental, historically inaccurate, misogynistic, it is racist towards Native Americans. AND it's all told in my least favorite method of narration: the journal entry. Chapters will often begin with, "So much has happened since my last entry, I don't know where to begin...." This is an easy tool to push time forward, and overdone in poorly written novels.

Fergus' n...more

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Nov 13, 2007 Mary Helene rated it 1 of 5 stars

It's a bodice-ripper! It took me to page 80 to figure that out and then I laughed aloud. Tana recommended it to me, and I usually value her recommendations, but I forgot that this is a genre she finds fun. I was just so disappointed. This book would appeal to those who like the "Outlander" series. There is the heroine who has no faults or failings but who is consistently misunderstood. There are evil characters lurking on the edges, but she feels safe in the arms of a series of fantastic heroes...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Mal rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book and the creative storyline but.... TWO things drove me up a tree - yes, I must play armchair author. I feel terrible criticizing Mr. Fergus in such a trivial manner but my criticisms really took away from my reading experience thus taking away from thoroughly enjoying OTWW. I know, who am I to be so anal I haven't even penned a novel. I am just a humble avid reader that knows exactly what tickles my fancy. Ok, enough rambling on to my two criticisms.

1- I am a stickler for di...more

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Nov 18, 2012 MAP rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction

1.5 stars.

This is another one of those disappointing books where the idea is really neat and the execution is incredibly bad. The main issue is how flawed the writing of the characters is. For one thing, he seems to confuse people having accents for people having personalities. There are Irish accents, southern accents, German accents. And he WRITES OUT the accents, which is supremely annoying. (He also sporadically writes things in French and then doesn't translate them.) On top of that, there'...more

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Jan 11, 2009 Christa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: library

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd is a very interesting and original book. In 1854 a Cheyenne chief proposed a plan to exchange 1000 horses for 1000 white brides for his warriors. The plan was rejected, but Fergus basis his fictional novel on a similar situation set in 1875. In the novel, the Cheyenne are promised 1000 white brides, and May Dodd, resident of an insane asylum, is one of the women selected. The character May Dodd was a strong woman and her story was compelling.

187...more One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd is a very interesting and original book. In 1854 a Cheyenne chief proposed a plan to exchange 1000 horses for 1000 white brides for his warriors. The plan was rejected, but Fergus basis his fictional novel on a similar situation set in 1875. In the novel, the Cheyenne are promised 1000 white brides, and May Dodd, resident of an insane asylum, is one of the women selected. The character May Dodd was a strong woman and her story was compelling.

1875 finds May Dodd living in an insane asylum in Chicago. Her parents placed her there unwillingly because she was living with a man of a much lower social station without the benefit of marriage. May and her lover had two children together, and her wealthy parents used her promiscuity as means to have her committed. The asylum is a hopeless place, and May misses her beloved children greatly. When she is offered the opportunity to go west as a bride for a Cheyenne warrior in order to help assimilate the tribe into the white culture, she decides that this may be her only possibility of leaving the asylum. She journeys west with a group of other "brides," many of them from prisons or other undesirable situations. On the journey to meet her bridegroom, May comes to have deep feelings for an army officer. Knowing that their relationship is hopeless, May resolutely goes to her new home with the Cheyenne. She finds her new husband to be a man of honor, and she greatly respects him. As May and the other women who journeyed with her settle into their new lives, the U.S. government decides not to honor their bargain but to instead force these Cheyenne to a reservation. When violence strikes the Cheyenne in the form of the U.S. Army, many of the brides and their new families come to a tragic end.

I enjoyed this book. I quickly became caught up in the story, and was saddened by the tragic end that came to many of the characters. May Dodd was an unusual, but likeable heroine. I enjoyed the manner in which the beginning and end of the book take place in the present with one of her desendants searching for information about May after the family story of her dying in the Chicago asylum is derailed.(less)

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Jun 19, 2011 Melanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nook-read

A fun romp through the west just after the civil war. The characters were really strong women and that was my favorite part; all colorful and independent in spirit. Though written by a man, Jim Fergus has a good perspective on the female psyche. It may have been a little misogynistic in some parts, maybe a brutal attack/rape too many imo, but I enjoyed the book a lot. Parts are true, the Cheyenne did ask President Grant for 1000 white women to help them assimilate into the "American" way, but Gr...more

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May 11, 2012 Dani Peloquin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am always up for speculative historical fiction in which an author takes an event that didn't happen but writes a book about if it did happen. This is the premise for Roth's Plot Against America in which he asks what if Charles Lindbergh had been elected president. Well in Jim Fergus' One Thousand White Women, Fergus tells the reader of how a Cheyenne chief asked the US government for one thousand white women so that the Americans and Cheyenne could bear children together for the purpose of pe...more I am always up for speculative historical fiction in which an author takes an event that didn't happen but writes a book about if it did happen. This is the premise for Roth's Plot Against America in which he asks what if Charles Lindbergh had been elected president. Well in Jim Fergus' One Thousand White Women, Fergus tells the reader of how a Cheyenne chief asked the US government for one thousand white women so that the Americans and Cheyenne could bear children together for the purpose of peace and assimilation. The US government turned them down by Fergus' novel explains what could have happened if they had taken the chief up on the deal.

The novel is written as a diary by Mary Dodd who was committed to an insane asylum by her parents because she had two children out of wedlock. When she is given the chance to leave the asylum and start a new life as a bride to a "savage", she jumps at the opportunity. The women who also took the government up on their offer include an impoverished Southern belle, two Irish criminals, a prude, a freed slave and many more. None of them know what to expect from their new lives and many are terrified when they meet their betrothed. Yet, being wed to a "savage" is not the hardest thing these women will have to overcome.

First of all, the reviews for this book are harshly divided. People either absolutely loved it and would include it on their list of books they would take to a deserted island. While others wish it could be part of a book burning party. However, I have to say that I am somewhere in between. This is far from a favorite for me and I would have to say that I am a bit leery about recommending it to my friends because I think they would find the characters to be shallow, the plot to be insipid, and the overall message to be muddled. Still, that's no reason to get out your lighter fluid. The way I would describe this novel is a western for women filled with the adventure of a John Wayne movie and just about equal in character development.

With such a diverse cast of characters I thought I would find one that was intriguing. But alas...they were nothing but cliches and offensive ones at that. I wasn't as repulsed by the characters as some other reviewers but I didn't find them in any way enlightening. I think that it would make a great book club book (and it has) because people are so divided and feel passionately about it.

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Jul 13, 2011 Susan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: udhs-faculty-book-club

What a remarkable story to read with such a great heroine in May Dodd. This is one fantastic story in journal format that relates the story of a woman who fell in love with the foreman of her father's mill and had two children with the man. For this her family banishes her to an insane asylum on the grounds of mental illness and promiscuity. She was neither mad nor promiscous just fell in love with the guy from the wrong side of the tracks. The US government made the inmates a great offer for th...more

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Aug 16, 2008 Michele rated it 4 of 5 stars

What an odd title for a book. It sounds racist at the same time as it's a very dull description of what the book is about (which is to say, the book is far more interesting than its title).

When book club first selected this book, I was somewhat skeptical about it, since I hadn't heard of the author before, and usually don't read 'historical' fiction of this sort. It's pseudo-autobiographical nature usually would turn me off, but I found myself very immersed in the book, to the point where my fam...more What an odd title for a book. It sounds racist at the same time as it's a very dull description of what the book is about (which is to say, the book is far more interesting than its title).

When book club first selected this book, I was somewhat skeptical about it, since I hadn't heard of the author before, and usually don't read 'historical' fiction of this sort. It's pseudo-autobiographical nature usually would turn me off, but I found myself very immersed in the book, to the point where my family had to repeat themselves to get my attention while reading it. Such immersivity is something I associate with my happiest reading moments, particularly as a teenager when I was beginning to discover my own reading tastes, and it's always a joy to just read a book without worrying about remembering the details or making notes as I go along.

That's not to say I didn't cry while reading the Codicil. I did. But that was a good thing - the book had drawn me into its world very effectively by that point.

The way I felt so immersed in this book made me think about the difference between reading it and Heart of Darkness. Part of my complaint about Conrad was that I had read so much theory about the book that I found it got in the way of just enjoying the story. And I find it difficult to really become immersed in a book when I'm constantly thinking 'Is this an important detail?' 'Should I underline this line?' 'How would a deconstructionist/feminist/post-colonialist read this passage?'

That got me thinking about whether it is only my aproach to a book: as scholarly text to take notes about, or as book to just enjoy (sans pencil), or the actual 'quality' of the book that affects its ability to be read critically or immersively. In other words, are 'good' i.e. literary books better adapted to critical response because they are harder to read and the construction/ideas of the book interrupt immersivity, or are they just somehow categorically 'better' written? This is a question I have difficulty deciding. I happend to like popular lit, and find it an interesting source for cultural critique, but in that sense, am I ignoring its actual 'value' from the point of view of literary or well-crafted text?

I haven't decided this question yet, but I have decided I like this book. It was about something I would not have naturally picked up (frontier woman confronting 'Indian wars' in nineteenth century America) but it provided me pleasure in reading, in part because I think it was indeed well written, so I would recommend it to other people.(less)

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Jun 15, 2008 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction, read2008

I keep forgetting to review this book. I think because I'm not quite sure what to make of it. The next time you're browsing in a bookstore pick it up just to read the kick-ass premise in the prologue. You probably don't need to bother with the rest. I didn't find it as trite or cliche as other readers. It's just that you can tell the experiment is doomed from the beginning and the storytelling isn't so revelatory that it's worth investing yourself in the poor characters.

Other thoughts.

1. I did l...more I keep forgetting to review this book. I think because I'm not quite sure what to make of it. The next time you're browsing in a bookstore pick it up just to read the kick-ass premise in the prologue. You probably don't need to bother with the rest. I didn't find it as trite or cliche as other readers. It's just that you can tell the experiment is doomed from the beginning and the storytelling isn't so revelatory that it's worth investing yourself in the poor characters.

Other thoughts.

1. I did like the narrator, she was convincingly plucky and intelligent. And tragic and just a little crazy. This is what kept me reading.

2. I don't know how realistic it was, but I didn't find it overly cliche. Which is weird because I'm usually very oversensitive to ethnic cliches. Well, yeah, so the one black woman was embarassingly cliche. Like, she sings and dances and goes Back to Africa worse than that Different Strokes episode where Arnold and Willis play the drums and change their names. She starts wearing a loincloth and hunting as a warrior. Yeah.

Amongst the white women there were plenty o cliches, with annoying dialect to prove it. (The bawdy Irish twins, the homely Swiss girl, the racist Southern belle, etc.) But I think it was sort of the point that they were clinging to those cliche identities and the experience brings out a greater depth in them all.

As for the Cheyenne, we see a myriad of personalities and groups within the tribe. A vivid description of everyday life and society. I didn't get a "noble savage" vibe at all. The white women adopt, reject, or compromise various aspects of their adopted culture and families based on personal preference and compatibility, not through any ideal of living a simpler life. Most of them are escaping from their past and certainly find their "Indian" lives to be freer, but the moral seems to be that life is harsh everywhere.

3. The most fascinating aspect of this book was seeing how complicated the issues of racialization and identity became for everyone involved with a people on the verge of genocide or assimilation.

4. For the most part this book seemed well researched and historically convincing. But, man, poor Phemie falls victim to ridiculous stereotyping again. The second she is introduced she offers up this elaborate backstory that sounds like someone skimmed the back cover of Roots at Blockbuster. Don't they have editors around here? Please tell me SOMEONE else remembers that the slave trade ended in 1808? (Phemie can't be more than 25 in 1875, yet she claims her mother was taken from deepest Africa and had her at a young age.) Ok, but surely everyone knows that Civil War began in 1861, making escape to Canada unlikely and unnecessary? (Phemie claims to have escaped a cruel master 10ish years before 1875, no mention of the war.) Sigh.

4. Damn, the ending is DEPRESSING.

5. I feel the need to read some actual historical Indian lit by actual historical Indians. (less)

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Feb 22, 2008 Kelly rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: booksreadin2008

The concept of this book is quite intriguing. After the Civil War, the Cheyenne approached President Grant about exchanging 1000 white women for 1000 horses in an attempt to help integrate the two nations, Native Americans and the United States. In reality, the suggestion was turned down. The premise of this novel is that Grant accepted. However, despite an interesting concept, the book just doesn't seem to work. Two aspects bothered me the most: while the narrator May Dodd is described as a fem...more

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Jan 12, 2008 Carol Vuchnich rated it 3 of 5 stars

Although a fiction book, this tale reads as if it were true which is what makes it all the more interesting. It begins after the Civil War at a time when western expansion of the plains was occuring. The government decides to institut an experimental program to help "assimilate" the "Red Menace" into White culture.

The story follows the life of May Dodd through her diaries.
Mary, an unconventional woman, lives "in sin" with a man she loves and has two of his children. Her father, a rich businessm...more

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Oct 25, 2007 Faydra rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

This is the October Mothers' League book to be discussed October 29th.

Finished last night - entertaining but depressing too.

This is about a group of white women who go to live with the Cheyenne Indians in the late 1800s.

It starts with a fictionalized account of an actual historical event - Chief Little Wolf meeting with President Grant for peace talks asks for 1,000 white woman to help integrate the Indian People and the white man. In real life Grant said no. In fiction he publicly said no but...more

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About Jim Fergus

Jim Fergus was born in Chicago on March 23, 1950. He attended high school in Massachusetts and graduated as an English major from Colorado College in 1971. He has traveled extensively and lived over the years in Colorado, Florida, the French West Indies, Idaho, France, and Arizona. For ten years he worked as a teaching tennis professional in Colorado and Florida, and in 1980 moved to the tiny town...more Jim Fergus was born in Chicago on March 23, 1950. He attended high school in Massachusetts and graduated as an English major from Colorado College in 1971. He has traveled extensively and lived over the years in Colorado, Florida, the French West Indies, Idaho, France, and Arizona. For ten years he worked as a teaching tennis professional in Colorado and Florida, and in 1980 moved to the tiny town of Rand, Colorado (pop. 13), to begin his career as a full-time freelance writer. He was a contributing editor of Rocky Mountain Magazine, as well as a correspondent of Outside magazine. His articles, essays, interviews and profiles have appeared in a wide variety of national magazines and newspapers, including Newsweek, Newsday, The Denver Post, the Dallas-Times Herald, Harrowsmith Country Life, The Paris Review, MD Magazine, Savvy, Texas Monthly, Esquire, Fly Fisherman, Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, and Field & Stream. His first book, a travel/sporting memoir titled, A Hunter's Road, was published by Henry Holt in 1992. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Jonathan Kirsch called A Hunter's Road, "An absorbing, provocative, and even enchanting book."

Fergus' first novel, One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd was published by St. Martin's Press in 1998. The novel won the 1999 Fiction of the Year Award from the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association, and has become a favorite selection of reading groups across the country. It has since sold over 250,000 copies in the United States. An international bestseller, One Thousand White Women (Milles Femmes Blanches) was also on the French bestseller list for fifty-seven weeks and has sold well over 400,000 copies in that country.

In 1999, Jim Fergus published a collection of outdoor articles and essays, titled The Sporting Road. And in the spring of 2005, his second novel, The Wild Girl: The Notebooks of Ned Giles was published by Hyperion Press. An historical fiction set in the 1930's in Chicago, Arizona, and the Sierra Madre of Mexico, The Wild Girl has also been embraced by reading groups all across the United States. Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump called it, "an exhilarating and suspenseful tale that makes the heart soar."

Jim Fergus is currently working on a new novel, a family historical fiction involving his French mother and grandmother, and spanning the first two-thirds of the 20th century. He lives presently in southern Arizona.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/jimfergus (less)

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Books by Jim Fergus

The Sporting Road: Travels Across America in an Airstream Trailer--with Fly Rod, Shotgun, and a Yellow Lab Named Sweetzer

Dog First Aid: A Field Guide: Emergency Care for the Hunting, Working, and Outdoor Dog

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“that's exactly the good thing about the Injun life--you don't have to stop and think about whether or not you're 'happy'--which in my opinionis a highly overrated human condition invented by white folks” — 6 people liked it

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