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Mendocino
One family's dream...one family's devotion...and the Golden State they claimed as their own...all in Mendocino.
Mass Market Paperback
First published February 13, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 12, 2019
I live in Mendocino County so the history in this book is close to home for me. The book is divided by generations into 7 parts, and it takes a while to begin to see the connections and evolution of the family and how it all relates to the original homesteader and founder NIckoli Beriankov. Nickoli was a Russian immigrant and frontiersman who moved from Ft Ross with his Indian bride to a redwood forest inland from the town of Mendocino. There he built an artistic and original redwood home for his mixed blood family.
The struggles of the next 7 generations to adapt and to surmount the challenges of prejudice, poverty, earthquakes, wars, depressions, flu epidemics, etc are what this story relates. Tragedy and heartache, despair and resolve, courage in the face of abandonment, and infant mortality feature largely in this story. It is not for the faint of heart. Still the family thread survives and ends on a hopeful note.
At first, I doubted that I would stay with the book. I could not stomach the tragedy, and put it aside for 2 months. I am glad I returned to the book, and gave it another chance. The author opens our eyes and hearts to the conflicts and history of people with disparate roots: Native Americans, Immigrants from Russia, Europe, China, Japan, Mexico and more all thrown into the mix and how they evolved and dealt with life and death challenges of a new nation, a new state, and a new town.
If you are interested in history and can persevere through heartache you will like this book. You will learn a lot about cruelty and resilience. It makes me want to know more about my own ancestors and what they had to deal with.
The struggles of the next 7 generations to adapt and to surmount the challenges of prejudice, poverty, earthquakes, wars, depressions, flu epidemics, etc are what this story relates. Tragedy and heartache, despair and resolve, courage in the face of abandonment, and infant mortality feature largely in this story. It is not for the faint of heart. Still the family thread survives and ends on a hopeful note.
At first, I doubted that I would stay with the book. I could not stomach the tragedy, and put it aside for 2 months. I am glad I returned to the book, and gave it another chance. The author opens our eyes and hearts to the conflicts and history of people with disparate roots: Native Americans, Immigrants from Russia, Europe, China, Japan, Mexico and more all thrown into the mix and how they evolved and dealt with life and death challenges of a new nation, a new state, and a new town.
If you are interested in history and can persevere through heartache you will like this book. You will learn a lot about cruelty and resilience. It makes me want to know more about my own ancestors and what they had to deal with.
August 18, 2021
Great historical novel about a place I love
October 2, 2013
A bit cliched in the writing/story, but sets the scene and gives little bites of history of the Mendocino + North Coast.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews