Helpful Score: 5
Normally I'm not what's known as a "cover junkie," but the cover of The Homesman showing a lone sod house in endless waves of prairie grass under an eternity of sky grabbed me. When I read the synopsis, I knew I had a purchase to make. Decades ago I remember coming across a comment in a history book which stated that women in those "soddies" out on the Great Plains had been known to go insane just from loneliness and the ceaseless keening of the wind. That was all that was said, but those words stuck in my mind like a burr. Now here was a novel in which the story of these lost voices could be heard.
Author Glendon Swarthout was always more interested in the losers in the Old West. What happened to them? What were their stories? In doing research, he didn't find much about what was done about people who were mentally ill, and what he did find was about the men-- who were likely to die of exposure or disease, to become alcoholics, or even to be shot down like rabid dogs in some out-of-the-way corner. But what happened to the women? Even back in the 1850s you couldn't just shoot a woman. The Homesman is Swarthout's solution, and it is spare, poetic, and brutally honest.
Superficially it is the simple tale of a man and a woman taking four helpless women cross country in a wagon to get them the sort care that they need. But the troubles Mary Bee and Briggs encounter on the trail, the people they meet, and just their close proximity to each other, begin to change them in subtle ways. This book is heartbreaking, it is brutal, and it is shocking. It tells a tale that many readers aren't particularly going to want to read, and perhaps that's the exact reason why they should read it. This is a story about the losers, those who were completely lost to history. The reasons why these beleaguered people failed were never going to be pretty or cheerful, but they should be remembered.
As I read, I began to feel cheated that the four women being taken back to Iowa didn't have any real dialogue or interaction with the others. Then I just had to shake my head at my own foolishness. The four women in The Homesman had been bludgeoned past caring by work with no end, by giving birth to one baby after another, by the brutal vagaries of the weather, and often by cruelty from their own husbands. These women had completely given up; they had been reduced to things that needed to be moved from Point A to Point B.
No, it's Mary Bee and Briggs who carry the load of thinking and conversation and action, and even their stories don't go as most readers would like. But as shocking as their tales may be, Swarthout plants clues all along the trail for us to notice. I was completely under this book's spell, and even though I didn't like how everything turned out, I still loved it. Now I'm looking forward to how Hollywood treats a very un-Hollywood novel. It will be interesting.
Author Glendon Swarthout was always more interested in the losers in the Old West. What happened to them? What were their stories? In doing research, he didn't find much about what was done about people who were mentally ill, and what he did find was about the men-- who were likely to die of exposure or disease, to become alcoholics, or even to be shot down like rabid dogs in some out-of-the-way corner. But what happened to the women? Even back in the 1850s you couldn't just shoot a woman. The Homesman is Swarthout's solution, and it is spare, poetic, and brutally honest.
Superficially it is the simple tale of a man and a woman taking four helpless women cross country in a wagon to get them the sort care that they need. But the troubles Mary Bee and Briggs encounter on the trail, the people they meet, and just their close proximity to each other, begin to change them in subtle ways. This book is heartbreaking, it is brutal, and it is shocking. It tells a tale that many readers aren't particularly going to want to read, and perhaps that's the exact reason why they should read it. This is a story about the losers, those who were completely lost to history. The reasons why these beleaguered people failed were never going to be pretty or cheerful, but they should be remembered.
As I read, I began to feel cheated that the four women being taken back to Iowa didn't have any real dialogue or interaction with the others. Then I just had to shake my head at my own foolishness. The four women in The Homesman had been bludgeoned past caring by work with no end, by giving birth to one baby after another, by the brutal vagaries of the weather, and often by cruelty from their own husbands. These women had completely given up; they had been reduced to things that needed to be moved from Point A to Point B.
No, it's Mary Bee and Briggs who carry the load of thinking and conversation and action, and even their stories don't go as most readers would like. But as shocking as their tales may be, Swarthout plants clues all along the trail for us to notice. I was completely under this book's spell, and even though I didn't like how everything turned out, I still loved it. Now I'm looking forward to how Hollywood treats a very un-Hollywood novel. It will be interesting.
Helpful Score: 3
Haunting and bittersweet. An riveting account of frontier life you never hear about. I thought the movie was excellent, but the book blew me away since it gave more detail into the thoughts of Mary Bee, Griggs, and even the afflicted women's personal experiences. I wish there could have been a happier ending in the traditional sense, but there simply was no sugarcoating its realistic and stark details. What a heart-wrenching, difficult life. Fascinating. Highly recommended at 5 stars.
Helpful Score: 2
This was an excellent book, easy to read, yet possessing depth. Mr. Swarthout doesn't tell you any lies.
There is an event that occurs in the book which you don't expect at all. And the reason that you don't expect it, is that it is not how Hollywood generally does things. It made alot of sense if you are actually putting yourself into the 1850s frontier, and not in romantic, perfectly happy ending Hollywood.
That being said, the book was very good, the end was satisfying, and if it took me somewhere I didn't expect to go, so much the better. It's not like I was on safari - I was never in any real danger - and it gave me compassion for people from whom I might be more naturally inclined to avert my eyes. These folks - Briggs, Cuddy, and the frontier wives - deserve to be seen, as their essences surely still exist today in others.
There is an event that occurs in the book which you don't expect at all. And the reason that you don't expect it, is that it is not how Hollywood generally does things. It made alot of sense if you are actually putting yourself into the 1850s frontier, and not in romantic, perfectly happy ending Hollywood.
That being said, the book was very good, the end was satisfying, and if it took me somewhere I didn't expect to go, so much the better. It's not like I was on safari - I was never in any real danger - and it gave me compassion for people from whom I might be more naturally inclined to avert my eyes. These folks - Briggs, Cuddy, and the frontier wives - deserve to be seen, as their essences surely still exist today in others.
I could read this this over and over and over. I loved it!!!! I'ts now one of my top favorites. This read was so out of my usual genre but i'm so glad I choose it.The synopsis was very interesting (and I gotta admit the cover is beautiful). If after you read the synopsis it sounds like something you just might enjoy then don't pass this one up.
Beautifully written story of the women who made America, and the sacrifices that were asked of them. Flawed, I think, in one important regard, but still an amazingly immersive read.
Like many people coming to this book, and author Glendon Swarthout, for the first time, I decided that I needed to read the book after seeing Tommy Lee Jones' movie adaptation, and being in almost equal parts dazzled and infuriated. I felt I needed to read the source material, to see if it cast any light on what I saw as baffling narrative decisions in the movie.
Well, it does and it doesn't: but I'm very glad I've read it. Both movie and book are equal parts dazzling and infuriating, and will stay with you long after you have finished with them. I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, because I think this is a Poster Child for the sort of book/movie where you really need to come to it cold.
So, no spoilers: Swarthout, in my opinion, is a subtle and thoughtful writer, lyrical when he wants be, blunt and unsparing when he needs to be, respectful of his source material, and very clever in the way that he builds his story.
Mary Bee Cuddy is a fantastic character. This is a novel that feels like a breaking news bulletin from the farthest frontiers of desperation. And the sacrifices -- the unacknowledged sacrifices that people endured to create our modern world, for better or for worse.
Like many people coming to this book, and author Glendon Swarthout, for the first time, I decided that I needed to read the book after seeing Tommy Lee Jones' movie adaptation, and being in almost equal parts dazzled and infuriated. I felt I needed to read the source material, to see if it cast any light on what I saw as baffling narrative decisions in the movie.
Well, it does and it doesn't: but I'm very glad I've read it. Both movie and book are equal parts dazzling and infuriating, and will stay with you long after you have finished with them. I'm trying to avoid spoilers here, because I think this is a Poster Child for the sort of book/movie where you really need to come to it cold.
So, no spoilers: Swarthout, in my opinion, is a subtle and thoughtful writer, lyrical when he wants be, blunt and unsparing when he needs to be, respectful of his source material, and very clever in the way that he builds his story.
Mary Bee Cuddy is a fantastic character. This is a novel that feels like a breaking news bulletin from the farthest frontiers of desperation. And the sacrifices -- the unacknowledged sacrifices that people endured to create our modern world, for better or for worse.
This book started out really good. The descriptions of the hardships of people and the landscape was vivid and believable. It's a part of pioneer history that isn't told much but its so important to know. The last part of the book was stupid. I was so disappointed in the ending that I gave it 3 stars.
Charged with transporting four women, minds broken by the hardships of the frontier, Mary Bee Cuddy enlists the reluctant help of a dispossessed claim jumper to help her.
Well, not enlists exactly. More like blackmails, since George Briggs escaped a slow hanging only due to Mary Bee's efforts. The unlikely partners then commence a tedious journey east toward Iowa, fighting each other, their occasionally raging passengers, the weather, and the land itself.
Swarthout keeps it honest. This is an 'African Queen' set in 1850s Nebraska, but George Briggs is no Charlie Allnutt -- he may drag their conveyance across the miles by main force and stubbornness, but will not reveal a heart of gold at the end, nor will he set up for happy-ever-after with Mary Bee.
This is a fine and honest book, honored by the Western Writers of America in 1988 as the "Best Historical Western" of the year. Thirty years later, it still wears the laurel well.
Well, not enlists exactly. More like blackmails, since George Briggs escaped a slow hanging only due to Mary Bee's efforts. The unlikely partners then commence a tedious journey east toward Iowa, fighting each other, their occasionally raging passengers, the weather, and the land itself.
Swarthout keeps it honest. This is an 'African Queen' set in 1850s Nebraska, but George Briggs is no Charlie Allnutt -- he may drag their conveyance across the miles by main force and stubbornness, but will not reveal a heart of gold at the end, nor will he set up for happy-ever-after with Mary Bee.
This is a fine and honest book, honored by the Western Writers of America in 1988 as the "Best Historical Western" of the year. Thirty years later, it still wears the laurel well.
