Into the Savage Country by Shannon Burke
My rating: 3/5 cats
this is a slim, quiet historical novel about the fur trade in the 1820’s. this is not to say it is uneventful, just that the way the story is told is in keeping with adventure stories of a bygone era—like jack london-y. which is good, just…quiet.
it reads part frontier adventure story/part western/part coming-of-age story, if that can be said about a book with a protagonist, william wyeth, who is in his twenties. it relates his last gasp of trapping adventure before he plans to settle into sedate domesticity with the woman he loves, who is making no promises about waiting around for him to get his wanderlust out of his system. atta girl!
the adventure parts are great, and include peril of many varieties: bears, snowstorms, betrayal, accidental shootings, ice, thieves, sioux, crow, and blackfoot tribes at war with each other, and…the british.
there are real-life people sprinkled throughout the book: general ashley, jedediah smith, jim bridger, hugh glass, as well as fictional characters that are all very compelling, especially pegleg and (swoon) the rakish layton. (he is not swoonworthy right off the bat, but believe me, he earns that swoon)
my only complaint is that there was something a little too contemporary-feeling about the dialogue. i can’t put my finger on it precisely, but there was something tonally dissonant about it that didn’t feel authentic. (which is a word that makes people squirm, i know, but i can’t think of a better one right now) the descriptions and landscapes felt completely appropriate and well-researched, and even the non-dialogue narratorial voice, which is frequently lovely:
Youth’s bright flame sears the mind and leaves us glorying in the past with an unalloyed affection that does not dim the present but enhances it with fond memories untarnished by their unpleasant parts.
that all feels right, which is why the dialogue in particular stood out to me as “off” somehow.
it’s not a big deal, just something i noticed. if you like historical fiction with a male focus (as opposed to historical fiction with voluminous dresses on the cover) or survival-in-the-wilderness tales, this is for you.
it’s short, but very well-written.
3.5 from me.
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