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Narcissa: A novel
On a cold January evening in 1836, 19-year old Narcissa Peterson agrees to marry Marcus Pittman, a doctor and missionary. A young woman of passionate convictions, she chooses to leave the comforts of family and home and follow her husband on a treacherous journey west, there to settle in a land where no white woman has ever dared travel.
Based on historical fact, the story tracks the actual expedition from the mansard roofs of a relatively civilized St. Louis to the vastness of the Rock Mountains, to Fort Vancouver, on to the shores of the Pacific.
Based on historical fact, the story tracks the actual expedition from the mansard roofs of a relatively civilized St. Louis to the vastness of the Rock Mountains, to Fort Vancouver, on to the shores of the Pacific.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
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February 18, 2015
A wonderful Western epic telling the saga of the Pittman and Fielding family as they struggle to travel to Oregon and start a new married life as missionaries with ideals of helping the local Indian tribes adopt Christian ways.
The two couples are vastly different, Henry Fielding treats his wife Elizabeth as a subservient chattel and is constantly spouting religious epithets whereas Marcus and Narcissa Pittman are more idealistic and very much in love being newlyweds.
But the hardships they endure on the trail and the grueling lifestyle toughens them in ways they cannot foresee.
Even when settled in their new home they have to start on their mission to "tame the heathens" and bring Christianity to the Indians.
But when tragedy strikes and an epidemic of disease hits both communities the Indians blame the white men for bringing new illnesses upon their tribe, in anger and grief at the decimation of their people due to their inability to fight a disease that white men have learned to adapt to they see the sickness as a curse brought upon them by the missionaries and so turn against the settlers in a massive bloodbath can the families escape all the carnage and get themselves and their chilren to safety?
A sweeping and glorious tale that had me hooked from the first page, lovingly told with apparently a lot of historical fact blended in the author has evoked a vivid retelling of life in the old West and the first settlers amongst the Indians.
Wonderful and well worth reading.
The two couples are vastly different, Henry Fielding treats his wife Elizabeth as a subservient chattel and is constantly spouting religious epithets whereas Marcus and Narcissa Pittman are more idealistic and very much in love being newlyweds.
But the hardships they endure on the trail and the grueling lifestyle toughens them in ways they cannot foresee.
Even when settled in their new home they have to start on their mission to "tame the heathens" and bring Christianity to the Indians.
But when tragedy strikes and an epidemic of disease hits both communities the Indians blame the white men for bringing new illnesses upon their tribe, in anger and grief at the decimation of their people due to their inability to fight a disease that white men have learned to adapt to they see the sickness as a curse brought upon them by the missionaries and so turn against the settlers in a massive bloodbath can the families escape all the carnage and get themselves and their chilren to safety?
A sweeping and glorious tale that had me hooked from the first page, lovingly told with apparently a lot of historical fact blended in the author has evoked a vivid retelling of life in the old West and the first settlers amongst the Indians.
Wonderful and well worth reading.
Displaying 1 of 1 review