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Found Documents from the Life of Nell Johnson Doerr: A Novel
Winner of the 2019 Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award
Not just epistolary, this novel is archival, told entirely through journals, letters, photos, drawings, notes, and clippings left behind by Nell Doerr, who lived in Lawrence, Kansas, between 1854 and 1889. Although Nell seems so real you can reach out and touch her, she is a fictional character. The novel tells the story of her two stillborn babies, her move to Kansas, the loss of her husband in Quantrill's Raid, and her discovery, while hiding in her basement, of the fossils of ancient creatures in the foundation rock. In finding these specimens this unforgettable heroine finds herself, a woman unconventional and strong, a mother without children, a wife without a husband, a scientist without educational pedigree, and someone who nurtures her passion for nature and contributes to the scientific knowledge of her time.
Not just epistolary, this novel is archival, told entirely through journals, letters, photos, drawings, notes, and clippings left behind by Nell Doerr, who lived in Lawrence, Kansas, between 1854 and 1889. Although Nell seems so real you can reach out and touch her, she is a fictional character. The novel tells the story of her two stillborn babies, her move to Kansas, the loss of her husband in Quantrill's Raid, and her discovery, while hiding in her basement, of the fossils of ancient creatures in the foundation rock. In finding these specimens this unforgettable heroine finds herself, a woman unconventional and strong, a mother without children, a wife without a husband, a scientist without educational pedigree, and someone who nurtures her passion for nature and contributes to the scientific knowledge of her time.
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 9, 2018
3 people are currently reading
56 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Fox Averill
19 books38 followersAn O. Henry Award story writer, Thomas Fox Averill is Writer-in-Residence at Washburn University of Topeka, KS. His novel, rode, published by the University of New Mexico Press, was named Outstanding Western Novel of 2011 as part of the Western Heritage Awards. His recent work, "Garden Plots," consists of poems, meditations, and short-short stories about gardens, gardeners, garden design, plants, and the human relationship to nature. They can be found on his website. His most recent novel is A Carol Dickens Christmas, published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2014.
Previous novels are Secrets of the Tsil Café, and The Slow Air of Ewan MacPherson. His story collections are Ordinary Genius (University of Nebraska Press) and Seeing Mona Naked (Watermark Books).
Previous novels are Secrets of the Tsil Café, and The Slow Air of Ewan MacPherson. His story collections are Ordinary Genius (University of Nebraska Press) and Seeing Mona Naked (Watermark Books).
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 5, 2024
Fun to read a book by a Kansas author writing about my town 150 years ago (and with even a shout out to Baker University). Although a fictional account, it feels "real" because of the epistolary style and other found documents. It was an engaging story, and I learned a lot about fossils, Kansas history, and suffrage on a community scale.
March 16, 2018
Found Documents from the life of Nell Johnson Doer is a gorgeous book!--quiet, careful in its detail, as the "author", a young Kansas woman left childless and widowed in the mid 1800s, would be. Written as a diary, with other "found documents" included, the book is grows on the reader, becoming deeply moving. I had tears in my eyes at several points--when Nell's not allowed to read her research paper on fossils, but also when she goes to the opera, and when she writes her nephew, sending him her husband's watch.
Averill manages to get in so much Kansas and national history, from slavery to suffrage, a lot of it that I didn't know. And all that with the background of the much slower history of geological time, including that long period when Kansas was an ocean. What an accomplishment!
Averill manages to get in so much Kansas and national history, from slavery to suffrage, a lot of it that I didn't know. And all that with the background of the much slower history of geological time, including that long period when Kansas was an ocean. What an accomplishment!
February 18, 2018
Thomas Fox Averill’s newest novel is rich in history, rooted in Kansas soil and driven by a strong female voice. Found Documents from the Life of Nell Johnson Doerr is fiction that rings of truth. It is a story told entirely through journals, letters, photos, drawings, notes and clippings left behind by Nell Doerr, who lived in Lawrence, Kansas, between 1854 and 1889. Nell moves to Kansas with her husband, an abolitionist working on the underground railroad. Nell has already lost two babies, and she loses her husband in Quantrill’s Raid. After so much loss she finds comfort in finding fossils and the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Through the documents Nell left behind, we get to know a resourceful, willful woman who bucks the conventions of her time to contribute her knowledge to the scientific record. Readers will get to know Nell, even as she finds herself through her work and the human relationships she builds over the years.
February 28, 2018
Disclaimer: Over the past two summers, I had the pleasure of working with my brother Tom, as we co-taught "Teaching and Practicing the Art of Fiction" at the St. Johnsbury Academy AP Summer Institute in Vermont. During that time, "Found Documents" was in development, with letters and diary entries in their earliest stages. It has been a joy to see the novel move from conception to birth, and a beautiful baby it is. I take joy in many aspects of the novel: its celebration of strong independent women, its revelation of scientific method (yes as practiced by a woman), its historical recounting of 19th Century American and Kansas politics, and its emphasis on the development of VOICE.
Although I do not think that Tom set out to write a commentary on contemporary politics, the novel presages our current state. In one instance, Nell Johnson Doerr discusses her methods with a professor who questions her. She writes, "Nevertheless, I persist," (p77) reminding me of our own Senator Elizabeth Warren. Our last election parallels the efforts of the Suffragettes in the novel and reminds allies and co-conspirators of the women's movement that there is still work to be done.
The novel is beautifully told as archival fiction, and Tom has captured the language of the period. His depth of research is evident throughout: the accuracy of his history of science and fossils, the historical references to non-fiction characters of the time, the vocabulary of 19th Century discourse, and even the debates about faith and science which were so powerful in that era.
At a time when our country is beginning to doubt science and to deny the research of experts, this novel speaks to the compatibility of science and belief.
Nell Johnson Doerr is an affecting character, one whose story of trials and triumphs is inspiring to this reader. Bereft of immediate family, she extends her powers to a much greater community and stands for the ways that we all contribute to the greater good. When she gives her lesson to the Ladies of the Unitarian Church (August 1875) she celebrates her one-celled Bryozoans for what they are able to do together. She says, "What would we be without each other? And what are we together: A whole creature, this assemblage tonight, feeding and fending for each other" (p.133). It is this spirit of power that permeates the novel. Above all for me, it’s the depiction of the development of voice against powerful odds. Thanks so much, Tom, for this important work.
Although I do not think that Tom set out to write a commentary on contemporary politics, the novel presages our current state. In one instance, Nell Johnson Doerr discusses her methods with a professor who questions her. She writes, "Nevertheless, I persist," (p77) reminding me of our own Senator Elizabeth Warren. Our last election parallels the efforts of the Suffragettes in the novel and reminds allies and co-conspirators of the women's movement that there is still work to be done.
The novel is beautifully told as archival fiction, and Tom has captured the language of the period. His depth of research is evident throughout: the accuracy of his history of science and fossils, the historical references to non-fiction characters of the time, the vocabulary of 19th Century discourse, and even the debates about faith and science which were so powerful in that era.
At a time when our country is beginning to doubt science and to deny the research of experts, this novel speaks to the compatibility of science and belief.
Nell Johnson Doerr is an affecting character, one whose story of trials and triumphs is inspiring to this reader. Bereft of immediate family, she extends her powers to a much greater community and stands for the ways that we all contribute to the greater good. When she gives her lesson to the Ladies of the Unitarian Church (August 1875) she celebrates her one-celled Bryozoans for what they are able to do together. She says, "What would we be without each other? And what are we together: A whole creature, this assemblage tonight, feeding and fending for each other" (p.133). It is this spirit of power that permeates the novel. Above all for me, it’s the depiction of the development of voice against powerful odds. Thanks so much, Tom, for this important work.
March 4, 2018
Some books are so beautifully written that you can’t bear to finish them. You read a few pages at a time, or a chapter, and you have to put it down to absorb what you just read — not only the content, but the language.
This is one of those books. Averill always crafts his books around what he calls “false documents” such as recipes and poems. This time the entire book comprises false documents, of letters and diary entries that are so genuine, so uniquely voiced, that you have to keep reminding yourself this is a novel. These small, easily consumed chunks mean you could easily read the book in one sitting. But to plow through the book is to miss out on lines that make your throat ache, like this one: “Each half [of the geode] was a cave full of purple crystals, amethyst, like sharp teeth, jagged, mirroring light, color softening at the points.”
Like the protagonist, Nell, I too have spent hours staring at fossils in limestone rock on our property in Kansas. Like Nell, I am proud of my heritage as a Free-Stater Kansan. Like Nell, I have risen from the ashes of disappointment, grief, anguish, and despair. Like Nell, “over and over I have broken the rock.”
This is one of those books. Averill always crafts his books around what he calls “false documents” such as recipes and poems. This time the entire book comprises false documents, of letters and diary entries that are so genuine, so uniquely voiced, that you have to keep reminding yourself this is a novel. These small, easily consumed chunks mean you could easily read the book in one sitting. But to plow through the book is to miss out on lines that make your throat ache, like this one: “Each half [of the geode] was a cave full of purple crystals, amethyst, like sharp teeth, jagged, mirroring light, color softening at the points.”
Like the protagonist, Nell, I too have spent hours staring at fossils in limestone rock on our property in Kansas. Like Nell, I am proud of my heritage as a Free-Stater Kansan. Like Nell, I have risen from the ashes of disappointment, grief, anguish, and despair. Like Nell, “over and over I have broken the rock.”
March 16, 2018
Found Documents from the life of Nell Johnson Doer is a gorgeous book!--quiet, careful in its detail, as the imagined "author," a childless widow and amateur geologist in the 1850s, would be. Though comprised of letters and diary entries, the novel is ultimately deeply moving. I had tears in my eyes at several points--when Nell's not allowed to read her paper on Kansas fossils, but also when she goes to her first opera, and when she writes her nephew, sending him her deceased husband's watch.
The novel manages to get in so much Kansas and national history, from slavery to suffrage, a lot of it that I didn't know. And all that with the background of the much slower history of geological time, including that long period when Kansas was an ocean. What an accomplishment!
The novel manages to get in so much Kansas and national history, from slavery to suffrage, a lot of it that I didn't know. And all that with the background of the much slower history of geological time, including that long period when Kansas was an ocean. What an accomplishment!
October 5, 2019
If the reader weren’t warned that this story is fiction, it would be easy to believe it a true account of an abolitionist woman from Arkansas who moves to the free territory of Kansas, only to be widowed when her husband is murdered by Quantrill’s Raiders. Set adrift, Nell must find her own way in life and becomes fascinated by the creatures preserved in the Permian rocks making up the walls of her home’s foundation. Seeking more knowledge, she dares the disapproval of her neighbors to walk the muddy riverbanks, and eventually to start seeking out those educated in the lore of fossils in order to expand her own understanding. A finalist in the 2019 WILLA Awards from Women Writing the West, this book richly rewards the reader.
May 24, 2019
2.5*
I sometimes have ambivalent feelings about epistolary fiction, but the format worked for this novel. The author uses the term "archival fiction," because there are items beyond letters.
The best part of this book was actually the themes running throughout: early Kansas, especially Lawrence (and their influence on U.S. history), women searching to be treated as equals, and the importance of amateurs in the development of the sciences.
Although my rating may not seem to indicate it, I believe there is definitely an audience for this work. The novel reads so much like history that I had to verify that Nell was NOT a real person when I first began the work.
I sometimes have ambivalent feelings about epistolary fiction, but the format worked for this novel. The author uses the term "archival fiction," because there are items beyond letters.
The best part of this book was actually the themes running throughout: early Kansas, especially Lawrence (and their influence on U.S. history), women searching to be treated as equals, and the importance of amateurs in the development of the sciences.
Although my rating may not seem to indicate it, I believe there is definitely an audience for this work. The novel reads so much like history that I had to verify that Nell was NOT a real person when I first began the work.
February 24, 2018
I just finished reading “Found Documents.” I had no idea of what to expect although I had heard Tom speak at the library. This book is a must read on a number of levels. It slowly takes hold of your head, your heart and your soul and does not let go.
August 10, 2018
Excellent book. A fiction follow-up for Tom Averill's fiction book "rode".
As much as I enjoyed "rode", I believe that I enjoyed "Found Documents" even more.
Since this book is written diary and letter format, it is a wonderful choice if your reading is interrupted frequently.
As much as I enjoyed "rode", I believe that I enjoyed "Found Documents" even more.
Since this book is written diary and letter format, it is a wonderful choice if your reading is interrupted frequently.
June 1, 2020
I can't quite say I disliked this book, because it wasn't bad, but it wasn't so much my thing. I guess I'm just totally uninterested in bryozoans, and I got a bit tired of her feminism. But it was fun to read fiction about the early days of my hometown.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews