Lori - , reviewed on 5/14/2013 + 21 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 7

Author Jim Fergus prefaces this novel with a note about a prominent Northern Cheyenne chief requesting 1000 white women in exchange for horses, at an 1854 peace conference. The request was denied, but this book imagines what might have happened if the request had been granted. The novel is written from the perspective of a fictional personal journal kept by one of the white women.

Right up front, I have to say that this is, perhaps, one of the WORST books I've ever read from cover to cover. If you're going to write about Native American tribes, it helps to do some research... this book uses outrageous caricatures in place of true representation. Fergus has his Cheyenne warriors replying "hou" to everything; he has his heroine repeatedly refer to Native Americans as "savages," even after she has supposedly been living with them for some time; and the dialogue is, quite frankly, the most abysmal trash I've had the misfortune to suffer through for a very long time.

Speaking of dialogue in particular, I have several beefs with Jim Fergus and his ham-handed attempt at writing REAL people:

1. In real conversation, real participants do not address each other by name in every sentence. In Jim Fergus's world, they do. Example - "Marge, please hand me that kettle." "Here you are, Joan." "Thank you, Marge. How is your toast, Marge?" "Oh, Joan, it's very tasty, thank you." "I'm so pleased, Marge, that you like it." This book is filled, from start to finish, with this amateur dribble. These are not real people talking.

2. Was it truly necessary to italicize every word spoken with a cartoon accent by the characters? Fergus has thrown in numerous cartoon characters who speak with outlandish caricature accents (ie. Fluttering Racist Southern Belle, Feisty Irish Twin Wenches, Sturdy Swiss Bosomy Farmgal, Sleazy French Half-Breed, just to name a few) and then proceeds to have them use horrible pronunciations of English dialogue printed in constant italics, as if we, the readers, were too stupid to notice that these folks don't speak plainly. And, furthermore, we are supposed to buy into the premise that all of this was written in a personal journal? Oh come on, Fergus. It's all too much eye-rolling.

3. The constant interjections of "Good God!!!" and "Hah!!" from the narrator. No one writes, or speaks, like that.

4. The narrator, writing in her journal, frequently states that she is desperately scrambling for a moment to write of current events as all manner of drama is raining down on her head, and yet she then proceeds to write 4-5 pages of intricately detailed dialogue between various characters, and flowery, stilted descriptions of various inane and inconsequential things. If the narrator truly only had a moment to scribble down a quick entry, she wouldn't have babbled on and on like a preteen at a slumber party. It's all just completely ridiculous.

5. Constant repetition. Constant, never ending, monotonous repetition. Yes, Mr. Fergus, you've established that the narrator dreams of some day rejoining her children in Chicago. We get it. You don't need to keep bashing us over the head with it.

6. Rampant over-use of quotation marks. I suggest that Jim Fergus's editor remove the quotation mark key from Mr. Fergus's keyboard (and disable his italics, while he's at it). Because he "thinks" that by "using" quotation marks, that he is being "clever" with his "writing," when, in fact, he is only being "annoying" as "hell" and making absolutely no "sense" at all.

Ach, I could go on and on all day about how bloody awful this book is. I haven't even scratched the surface.

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