Drawing on archival documents and contemporary and recent histories, Atkinson has written a compelling narrative, but his...
A woman’s life in dangerous times.
In 1697, Hannah Duston, a Haverhill, Massachusetts, wife and mother, was abducted by Abenaki Indians and forcibly marched north toward French-occupied Canada to be ransomed. Her week-old infant was brutally murdered during the march, other captives were beaten to death, and the survivors were starved and abused. Desperate, Duston managed to take revenge, slaying not only her captors, but squaws and children, as well, hacking off scalps for monetary reward. Journalist and fiction writer Atkinson (Writing/Boston Univ.; Memoirs of a Rugby-Playing Man, 2012, etc.) narrates Duston’s story in gory detail, aiming to convey “the moral truth of what happened” and allow readers to judge whether Duston’s act of savagery was justified. Her contemporaries had no doubt: Cotton Mather wrote a sympathetic account; Maryland’s governor sent Duston an appreciative gift of three pewter chargers; in recognition of her valor and the scalps, the General Court of Massachusetts awarded her 50 pounds. Atkinson implies his own admiration, as well, in presenting Duston’s experience “through the lens of the prejudices, preconceptions, and preoccupations of the seventeenth-century colonial settlers and the Indians.” Although he acknowledges that Indians had suffered “decades of insult and abuse,” were driven from their land, “preyed upon by corrupt traders and swindlers, [and] demeaned by colonial authorities,” he still depicts them as terrorizing savages: marauding, whooping with “devilish noise,” ruthlessly murdering with axes, clubs, hatchets, pikes, knives, and rifles given to them by the French. The French, greedy and bellicose, inflamed Indian hatred of the colonists and disrupted their traditional hunting and gathering by seducing them into the lucrative fur trade. The competition for animal hides, Atkinson maintains, pitted tribe against tribe.
Drawing on archival documents and contemporary and recent histories, Atkinson has written a compelling narrative, but his reprisal of 17th-century prejudices makes for discomfiting reading.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4930-0322-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Lyons Press
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though she has a superb story, Solinger never quite finds the voice with which to tell it. Despite these rough edges, well...
Solinger's (Wake Up, Little Susie, 1992) biography of abortionist Ruth Barnett introduces us to a compelling character and to the underdocumented history of illegal abortion before Roe v. Wade.
Between 1918 and 1968, Ruth Barnett performed some 40,000 abortions in Portland, Oreg. Her life story reveals as simplistic the popular stereotype of illegal abortionists as unscrupulous, predatory opportunists indifferent to women's health and safety. Although Barnett lived well and flamboyantly, she was also motivated by a profound desire to help those in need. All her life, she acknowledged that her work was illegal but insisted that abortion should be a woman's personal decision. Indeed, she could not turn down women and girls who had no other options. Barnett's skills—she never lost a patient, and medical complications from her operations were extremely rare—were well-known to doctors throughout the Northwest, who frequently referred patients to her, and her antiseptic offices with up-to-date-equipment were hardly the dangerous, infection-ridden sites of current "back-alley'' mythology (though such outfits certainly did exist). Solinger manages to thoroughly engage the reader in Barnett's life without excessively lionizing her or retreating into revisionist polemics. This groundbreaking work should encourage further research on—and popular interest in—the pre-Roe abortionists. Unfortunately, Solinger's prose is inconsistent: at times too dry, at times overwritten and melodramatic. A plethora of mixed metaphors muddy the text, and awkward phrasing disrupts the narrative throughout.
Though she has a superb story, Solinger never quite finds the voice with which to tell it. Despite these rough edges, well worth the attention of anyone interested in the history of women's reproductive rights.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 1994
ISBN: 0-02-929865-2
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In his first nonfiction work, noted Native American novelist Welch (The Indian Lawyer, 1990, etc.) stretches the boundaries of history. With the research assistance of Stekler, Welch offers a sweeping history of the American West based on work the pair did for their 1992 PBS documentary, The Last Stand. Though centered on the Battle of the Little Big Horn, in which warriors led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeated Custer's 7th Cavalry, the volume actually chronicles white/Indian contact and conflict from the voyage of Lewis and Clark in 1804 to the present—from the viewpoint of the Indians. Welch begins by describing the 1869 massacre of a band of his own Blackfeet people and his efforts to locate the forgotten site of the carnage. He then moves on to the story of Custer, a Civil War hero who was demoted following the war and sent to fight Indians on the Western frontier. His conduct at the Washita Massacre, during which he and his men wiped out Black Kettle's peaceful Cheyenne, called his abilities into question and demonstrated the character and leadership flaws that would help bring about his death eight years later. Brash, cavalier, and supremely confident, Custer embodied America's larger self-image. His death, in the worst military disaster of the Indian Wars, thus assumed mythic proportions, aided by a relentless publicity campaign by his widow. Welch traces the fates of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull following the famous battle and uses accounts of such other engagements as Sand Creek and the Fetterman Massacre to help put Little Big Horn in historical perspective. A late chapter personalizes the text, as Welch tells the story of his mother and his early desire to become a writer. An excellent Native version of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: a sad tale that, despite momentary triumphs like Little Big Horn, could not but end tragically for the Indians. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 24, 1994
ISBN: 0-393-03657-X
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
