THE LAST GREAT SUSQUEHANNOCK CHIEF

In Rose’s historical novel, a Dutch colonist in the New World is captured by an Indigenous tribe and attempts to rise within its ranks.

In 1655, Judah Joseph lives in New Netherland (present-day New York); he was raised as a Jew, though without any religious enthusiasm. His Dutch settlement is raided by members of the Susquehannock tribe, and after a cataclysm of violence, he is taken captive. Despite his reduced circumstances, he develops a “certain sympathy” for his captors—enamored of their dignity and discipline, he makes an implausibly quick decision to become one of them, to distinguish himself as a warrior, and to eventually become their leader. He impresses his chief, Flowing Waters, and establishes a reputation as a fighter and hunter, earning the tribal name Blue Eyes. However, he jeopardizes his place within the tribe when he impregnates Singing Bird, a 15-year-old girl who kills herself to avoid the shame of marrying a white man. In the historically edifying but literarily unsatisfying narrative, Blue Eyes flees his tribe to find another, determined to realize his ultimate aspiration to become a four-feathered sachem (chief) and changing his name to Blue Eagle. The author’s portrayal of the story’s historical period and the culture of the Susquehannock people radiates an impressive verisimilitude. Additionally, the depiction of Blue Eagle’s psychological conflict—the way in which, despite ascending to a position of leadership in a tribe, he “still had one leg in the white man’s world”— is artfully rendered. But the plot as a whole is starkly implausible, and Rose’s prosaic writing lacks style. When the author reaches for poetic heights, he instead comes up with breathless melodrama. Here is a snippet of Blue Eagle’s inner monologue after he is captured by an enemy tribe: “You must survive this ordeal. You have a destiny to fulfill, obligations to meet, a family that needs you, a village that respects you. Kill if you must, but you must live!” For all of its strengths as a historical record, the novel is disappointing as a work of fiction.

Calcified prose and a lack of believability waylay this work of historical fiction.