The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party

by Daniel James Brown

Modern disaster psychologists have found that bold, decisive leadership greatly improves any group’s ability to survive the early stages of an impending catastrophe.

Death was the rule, life the exception. Life was at best a transitory dream, set in a universe that was entirely indifferent to his fate. Whether to cling to that fragile dream, Parrado realized then and there, was up to him as it is up to all of us, moment by moment. Whether to embrace what we are all thrust into, squealing with astonishment and rage, or to fall back into the comfortable, dark, quiet realm of the insentient.