A Sparrow Alone

A Sparrow Alone by Mim Eichmann  311 pages

When the story opens, thirteen-year-old Hannah Owens sits quietly staring at her mother’s face with her two younger siblings. Their dead mother’s face. I was never sure exactly what killed Mother, but it seemed a sort of wasting disease; I’m thinking cancer of some type. Their father is a psalm-singer (very strict Puritan), constantly spewing psalms and working on occasion. He also seemed insane to me.

Author Eichmann sets readers down in 1890s Colorado, where the Owens family lives in horrible, horrible poverty. The family hasn’t eaten much in several days. The doctor’s wife, Mrs. Hughes, arrives, demanding to know what has happened. She rolls up her sleeves and takes charge, making sure Mother is promptly buried.

Mrs. Hughes convinces Pa that he cannot take care of the three children. She takes Hannah with the intention of training her as a house maid. While that seems like a generous thing to do, Mrs. Hughes isn’t the person she appears to be. Soon, she is whipping Hannah, leaving scars that resemble slaves’ backs after beatings.

When Dr. Hughes decides to abandon his wife, Mrs. Hughes throws Hannah and Zuma, the cook, out. The women follow Dr. Hughes to Cripple Creek, Colorado. The doctor is investing heavily in his mistress’s new venture, one that becomes the most famous brothel in Cripple Creek.

Hannah’s life is one of such hardship that it seems that the young woman would not be able to overcome. But Hannah is a fighter, always picking herself up and going on. That is until multi-millionaire Winfield Scott takes a shine to her.

The story is well-researched and gives a truly extraordinary look into just how difficult life was in those days. Much of the story is written in dialect, which always threw me out of the story. One or two times are all a story needs of dialect, and most readers associate that with the character through the rest of the book.

The biggest issue for me, however, is the last chapter. It seemed to come out of left field. It seemed, to me, that Eichmann was tired of writing and wrapped it up neatly. But that can’t be the case because there is a sequel that I want to read. Surely poor Hannah’s life has to get better.

For the two reasons above, “A Sparrow Alone” receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

The River

The River by Peter Heller    272 pages

It’s hard to pigeon-hole this novel into one genre; It’s part wilderness adventure, part thriller and part horror story, with a bit of “Deliverance” thrown in.

Jack and Wynn share a love of literature, camping, canoeing and fishing. “They were best friends at Dartmouth, who had decided to take the summer and fall quarters off.” Fall was closing in as the two were reaching the last few days of their canoe trip on northern Canada’s Maskwa River. They do not foresee the trouble that lies ahead. But if there isn’t some sort of dilemma ahead, there isn’t much tension to the story. 

Their days are filled drifting in their canoe, fishing for their meal, picking wild blueberries and long discussions of literature. The descriptions of the landscape and the animals puts the reader right there in the canoe with them.

The book opens with a major concern: “They had been smelling smoke for two days.”  After setting up camp that night, they “followed a game trail to a ledge of broken rock…looking northwest they saw it…and they knew it was a fire.” It was humongous.

Time became more pressing. They had to reach the landing, several days still away, before the flames could catch up with them.

Further downstream, on a fog-shrouded night, Jack and Wynn heard a couple arguing. They decide against warning them about the fire. The next day, a man appears and stops at their campsite. He is alone, but looks as if he’s been beaten.  Wynn, ever the trusting soul, believes the story the man concocts, but Jack isn’t buying it. He believes that the man killed the woman and would kill them if he got half a chance.

Jack and Wynn slip away, but they backtrack to look for the woman. Once they find her, it becomes a race for life as the struggle to reach civilization.

A heart-pounding read, except for one thing. Heller’s preferred format of chunky blocks of text kept throwing me out of the story. It felt like a self-published book where the author was trying to get attention by the unexpected format.  It turns out that Heller formats all his books like that.  Still, I found it highly irritating, and that is why “The River” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.