[Subdue] Across the Endless River - Thad Carhart - 3.5 stars

[Robin P]

This came up on STS and I read it and only realized when I came to review it, that it fits for this tag! Across the Endless River has very few tags, as it probably doesn’t have many readers. It is the story of a real person, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of a French fur trader and Sacagewea, guide and translator to the Lewis and Clark expedition. He grew up spending part of his time with his mother’s tribe and part in St. Louis, getting a European education. At 19, he served as guide for a German aristocratic naturalis, who then brought him to Europe to help organize the many specimens and cultural objects he had “collected”in the New World. Charbonneau traveled in Europe for 5 years, then returned to the frontier. The most interesting part of the book for me was the early years. The part in Europe sometimes read more like a travelogue, or Forrest Gump meeting all the famous people. The author did invent many people and incidents, including a love life for the hero.

I was disturbed by the use of the word “squaw”. Of course it was used by Europeans at the time, but the author has the Native character use it too. This book was written in 2009, and I think there wasn’t as much awareness of the insulting nature of the word then.

[Booknblues]

The use of that word would bother me. I think even in 2009, it was not done.