THE BRIDE OF THE WILDERNESS

An early 18th-century Old World/New World saga, and the sixth in McCarry's chronicles of the Christopher family. The focus during the first (Old World) third is on five people: Henry Harding, London merchant and shipowner; his best friend Oliver Barebones; his daughter Fanny (the eponymous Bride); Oliver's reluctant young bride Rose; and the moneylender Montagu, ""the rottenest man in London."" Though an atheist, Henry has raised Fanny as a secret Catholic, out of respect for his French wife (dead in childbirth). Henry is killed accidentally during a football game, whereupon young Fanny rushes to the French port of Honfleur to save her father's brig from moneylender Montagu (he has already destroyed Henry's house). She avoids his raping her by jumping overboard, to be saved by a French soldier, Philippe Saint-Christophe (the first Christopher). Henry's death has soured London for his friend Oliver, too; since an uncle has left him a big chunk of land west of Boston, he sets sail in Henry's brig with Fanny and Rose. Alamoth (the town founded by Oliver's uncle) has already been ravaged once by Abenaki Indians out of Canada; soon after the English party's arrival, it is attacked again. This time the Abenaki are led by the reappearing Philippe, who has arranged the expedition out of love for Fanny: by his logic, she becomes not his prisoner but a ""rescued Catholic."" Actually she is now closer to her father's atheism, wanting only ""to live in silence"" with Philippe in the wilderness, and after various mishaps her wish is granted. They marry, and the 18-year-old Fanny gives birth to twins in a cave. Disoriented by early losses (the lovable Henry, the splendidly creepy Montagu), buffeted by cultural crosswinds (Puritan, Catholic, Indian), and forced to wait forever for Fanny to enter her wilderness (and womanhood), the reader must make do with incidental pleasures; these are abundant (McCarry writes a fine, muscular prose), but no substitute for the elemental pull of a storyline.