Book Review- One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
“You’re grounded FROM your room!”
I wanted to ask why, but it had already been explained. Grounding me to my room wasn’t a punishment because if I wasn’t playing sports or working with animals, it is where you’d find me.
Reading!
As I grew, reading became more of my job- college, state insurance exams, and sales training courses. Then, abruptly, reading was no longer part of my life. I was overwhelmed with ranch work and mom life. If I allowed myself the luxury of stopping long enough to read, it was with a personal development book, something I had to learn from or ask introspective questions about afterwards. I eventually discovered Audible and thus began the dark years, no leafy pages of physical books.
While on a kid free trip to Reno, I happened into Barnes and Noble. I think I was mostly there to get coffee and drool over expensive journals (another obsession of mine) but made my way upstairs to the fiction section. My internal dialogue convinced me that I needed to read for fun again and to even spend money in order to do it, but on what? Growing up, I liked murder mystery/suspense like that of Mary Higgins Clark. I could grasp sci-fi when it was written like Harry Potter or the Outlander series because the logical side of my brain could rationalize co-existing worlds. But what did I like now?
A Native/Aztec patterned spine caught my eye. I turned the book over in my hands a few times then walked downstairs to finalize my purchases. Little did I know I found the author that would introduce me to “fun” reading again.
One Thousand White Women, written by Jim Fergus, is a historical fiction novel following a woman that was wrongly institutionalized in the 1800’s as she became part of the Cheyenne Brides program. It was a government ploy to “civilize the savages” by coupling them with white women. The author had an excellent grasp of the cultural issues of the time, both of the white and native societies.
I recently read the sequel to One Thousand White Women called The Vengeance of Mothers and it did not disappoint! The book continues the harrowing story of the first group of brides and introduces us to the new recruits. These gals though, are in for a whole new world of challenges to overcome while living on the plains of the United States.
If these two titles are not enough to keep you busy, might I suggest The Wild Girl, a photographer’s adventures on the southern border with the Apache?
I need a few more historical fiction books to add to my shelves, is there an author or series you can recommend?
