The White

"The White" by Deborah Larsen

Fiction, 2003, 240 pages

Book Club: NY - B&N Women's Book Club (June, '07)

Ratings : 4.0 (3.5 on Amazon)

Summary :

Booklist: Larsen takes the true story of Mary Jemison, a white woman captured by the Shawnee before the American Revolution, as the subject for her accomplished first novel. After her parents are killed, 16-year-old Mary is given to two Seneca sisters. Renamed Two-Falling-Voices, she falls into total apathy. Gradually her sisters draw her out, and a young man from the Delaware tribe takes her for his wife. At first Mary resists the idea of the marriage, but her patient husband soon wins her over. Their first child is stillborn, but their second is a healthy son, and Mary is happy until her husband dies on a trading mission. Mary is grief-stricken, but when she meets Hiokatoo, an older warrior, she once again falls in love. Throughout her life, Mary struggles with her heritage and her new life; she has several opportunities to return to white society, and takes none of them. Larsen handles Mary's complex emotions and her dueling desires with subtlety, and her elegant prose vividly brings Mary's world and thoughts to life.

Mary Jemison's story took place in the Northeast, and a monument to her spirit is in Lechworth Park in New York. She was know as the "Old White Woman of Genesse" and lived on her land in Gardeau Flat until 1831 when she moved to an Indian reservation near Buffalo where she died in 1833 at the age of 90.

As I was reading this book, I learned more about Mary, and later visited Lechworth park to she her monument and the cabin of her daughter Nancy.

What didn't you like about the book : Some of the book seem to include "text" from the book about Mary written in 1824 by James Seaver or possibly notes of his interview with Mary in 1823. When this was done it was rather disjointed and choppy.

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to others. I enjoyed reading a fictional account of a the real person, Mary Jamison.