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The White
“I was born a white at sea on the way to the New World . . . But I was taken by those whom we called Indians. Nearly speechless for a time, I was beset by terrors.”
This is the voice of Mary Jemison, who, in 1758, at the age of sixteen, was taken by a Shawnee raiding party from her home near what would become Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In this intimate reimagining of her lif...more
This is the voice of Mary Jemison, who, in 1758, at the age of sixteen, was taken by a Shawnee raiding party from her home near what would become Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In this intimate reimagining of her lif...more
Hardcover, 240 pages
Published
July 16th 2002
by Alfred A. Knopf
(first published 2002)
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Not the book to grab if you're just wanting to do some light weekend reading, Deborah Larsen's The White is a must-read if you're into the captivity narrative genre and historical fiction. A readapted narrative about the famous American heroine Mary Jemison, The White takes the story of Mary Jemison and delivers it in a more personal and engaging way. Larsen used excerpts from interviews with Jemison that were used to write the first telling of her story. Larsen is able to capture (or possibly c...more
Like me, you may have heard the stories about the Indian boarding schools that were set up by the federal government in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The basis for the schools was to take Indian children away from their families and communities and send them to boarding schools, mostly run by religious organizations, for the purpose of "civilizing" them, helping them "find religion", and otherwise causing them to be assimilated into white, Christian culture. I find this whol...more
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Michelle
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Native American/Early American colonial history fans
So I had checked this book out from the library a while ago, and returned it without ever getting to read it. Then my mom read it and really liked it. We usually read the same types of things, so I rechecked it out. Now, let me give a disclaimer -- although I am not racist or prejudice or anti-American Indian, etc., etc. I normally do not enjoy reading books about their history. It's always brutal, depressing and the books are all about who's to blame, who did what, yadda yadda yadda. Ever...more
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So this could have been totally great! But instead it was meh. You can tell the author was a poet for her chapters read like short prose- which I am totally into, however I would have liked it to be a little more meaty.... for lack of a better description. I wanted my heart to be broken or to feel angery or hopeful but all that I did feel was hazy. I mean what was with that one page of a mesmerizing man walking by and then declairing he was joseph smith- totally random and disconjointed.
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There were some lovely moments in this book and I really like the writer's style, but I couldn't help thinking it was a bit rushed. I think this is a compliment to the author. I loved the story, but it moved too quickly through some parts and I missed the chances to really get to know the characters. She missed a lot of opportunities here.
Side note: What was with the mention of Joseph Smith? Random. Random. Random. (Even if Mary did mention JS in her interview, using it in ...more
Side note: What was with the mention of Joseph Smith? Random. Random. Random. (Even if Mary did mention JS in her interview, using it in ...more
I read this several years ago and could not find the title for a long time in order to add it to my list here. I remember being caught by the writing style of at least the beginning. Very impressionistic, haunting. This is a story of a real person who lived through some pretty horrific circumstances. Watching her family brutally killed, then being taken captive, surviving reluctantly, and then, after being traded to two sisters who had lost a brother to similar brutality yet treated her with kin...more
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This was an interesting view of Native American life, from the eyes of a white 16-year old girl taken captive. Given the chance to return to white culture, Mary chooses to stay. I enjoyed reading her thoughts, descriptions and general assimilation into the Native American culture.
I believe Larsen was mostly accurate as far as historical facts, but she placed Joseph Smith a few decades early! If we're talking about the same Joseph Smith, she mentioned him at the start of the Revoluti...more
I believe Larsen was mostly accurate as far as historical facts, but she placed Joseph Smith a few decades early! If we're talking about the same Joseph Smith, she mentioned him at the start of the Revoluti...more
This is a book about a girl who is given by a group of home raiders to a Native American family to replace the death of their brother. She witnesses the murder of her family by these same raiders. This is what I also knew about the book before I started reading. I thought, how depressing, but interesting.
The book talks mostly about this woman's life among the Native Americans. However, it doesn't go into a lot of detail about things. We get a very surface account for the most part. O...more
The book talks mostly about this woman's life among the Native Americans. However, it doesn't go into a lot of detail about things. We get a very surface account for the most part. O...more
A kind of strange little book. It tells the tale of Mary, who was taken prisoner by the Shawnee and given to the Seneca in place of a warrior who was killed. (Meanwhile, her whole family is scalped...) Larsen's prose is lyrical and beautifully composed, but the story is almost abstract. Mary is an enigma and I didn't really understand her evolution of character very much. Often I felt as if I were a peeping Tom looking in her cabin window, seeing but not engaging with her. Still, an evocat...more
A regional interest book since the historical subject, Mary, and the author both hail from nearby Adams County, Pennsylvania. Mary was kidnapped by Native Americans during the French and Indian War and became a Seneca. The story details her assimilation in to the culture, her marriages, her family life, and her biography as told to a doctor in the early 1800s. Written in brief snippets, it allows Mary's voice to flow.
Finished this last week. Interesting, if somewhat disjointed (especially in terms of timeline) narrative of a woman captured by the Shawnee (and the witness of her entire family's murder) tribe and ultimate adoption of another tribe, the Seneca. Her life straddled the world between Indian and white and although I sometimes found the timelines disjointed (wait, is she 50? or 70?), I enjoyed the narrative overall.
The White is a very well-organized book regarding the life of a caucasian girl living with a Native American family. The book shows a unique point of view of the time during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. The book is a good, short, easy read and is very enjoyable. However, the topics presented in the story are not very exciting and may not prove interesting to some people.
The White is based on the real story of Mary Jemison, who was captured as a young girl by a Shawnee raiding party in 1758. That story itself is plenty compelling -- here, it is made even more so by the beauty of the author's vision and writing. (I was not surprised to find, after reading the book, that the author is a poet. Her writing asks to be read with the heart as well as the mind.)
2010- This was a bit of disjointed read, and I really didn't like how it switched back and forth from third person to first person. It is loosely based on a true story of a woman who was captured by Native Americans, and became a member of their tribe over time. It was awfully short, and read more like a short story.
So far I really like this book. It has a few gory parts in the story like scalping people only it's indians doing this to white people and they paint the scalp and haie burgendy red. They keep the young ones and give them away to other people or tribes. That is as far as I had gotten so far in the book.
A fictional biography of Mary Jemison, who, when 16 years old, was captured by Indians and taken in as one of them. She married and had children. It was interesting to watch her change in views on race.
One historical inaccuracy nearly ruined the whole book for me.
One historical inaccuracy nearly ruined the whole book for me.
Phair
rated it
I HATED the style and the graphic violence in this one. Got very little sense of the French & Indian War as this was focused on the captivity of Mary Jemison. Normally I like this sort of topic but this one just made me uncomfortable and irritable so I quit reading it. Icky.
Graceful and elegant prose makes this an enjoyable and well-formed narrative about a young settler kidnapped and assimilated into a Native American tribe in the 18th century. Extremely relevant in this age of greater social awareness of ethnic and identity issues.
started: 11/30/08
finished: 12/3/08
This book was incredibly interesting! I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in history. It follows the life of a girl who, at a very young age, is taken by indians and essentially sold into slavery with another indian tribe. She ends up marrying two indians from two different tribes and having several children. Her stories are amazing and it is shocking to realize this is all based on the actual life of this woman as she described...more
finished: 12/3/08
This book was incredibly interesting! I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in history. It follows the life of a girl who, at a very young age, is taken by indians and essentially sold into slavery with another indian tribe. She ends up marrying two indians from two different tribes and having several children. Her stories are amazing and it is shocking to realize this is all based on the actual life of this woman as she described...more
There was very little in this book that added to the information on the book jacket. It seemed Larsen was more into poetry rather than prose. I was disappointed in this book, but I am glad it was so short. I couldn't have finished it if it was longer.
I remember my grade school field trip to view the statue of Mary Jemison just outside Caledonia State Park and listen to the history behind the memorial, it made this story more alive to me, as I could really see where these events took place.
I didn't plan this, but this book fit well with The Unredeemed Captive which I read last year. This is a fictionalized account of another white woman who was also captured by Indians and chose to stay with them, and who told her story late in life to a historian.
It's kind of a dull book, though. Not a whole lot happens except gathering and preparing food, with an occasional battle. Our heroine Mary of the Senecas is kind of a Mary Sue: red hair and blue eyes (of course). She's patien...more
It's kind of a dull book, though. Not a whole lot happens except gathering and preparing food, with an occasional battle. Our heroine Mary of the Senecas is kind of a Mary Sue: red hair and blue eyes (of course). She's patien...more
With a choppy start, this book ended up being an interesting read. The best parts in my opinion were the italized paragraphs, presumably quoted right from Mary. Very interesting, onlu took a couple of hours to read.
It's a lyrical, haunting blend of history and fiction, telling the story of one woman's life in the North America of the 1700s. Larsen makes the reader wonder at the strength and independence of Mary Jemison, a white woman who embraced the Seneca culture.
I read this as part of a community program called "One Book, One Community" which unites people by having them all reading the same book, and then sharing thoughts and activities. Since the events in this book took place near my home, and since there appears to be a similar experience in my family tree, I was really interested in the tale of a young white girl kidnapped on the frontier by Native Americans in the area.
It tells a remarkable story of a girl who grew to be m...more
It tells a remarkable story of a girl who grew to be m...more
Right now, I am surprised how engaging this book is. I love historical fiction, but honestly, the author does a brilliant job of putting you in the shoes of Mary - you hear her thoughts, her motivations, her resignations. It's very well done, without a lot of flowery superfluous prose, which is sometimes a drawback of historical fiction.
An excellent story expertly told. I knew it was a fictional narrative, but the power of the prose held me throughout the book, especially the way Larsen mixed third and first person.
Reading this immediately after quitting on Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" was like opening the freezer door on a hot, summer day.
Reading this immediately after quitting on Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" was like opening the freezer door on a hot, summer day.
I read this one maybe two years ago; about Mary Jemison aka The White Woman of the Genesee. This is a novel about Jemison's life with Native Americans post capture in western NY area.
Lovely poetic prose.
Lovely poetic prose.
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