The Indifferent Stars AboveThe Indifferent Stars Above
A chronicle of the mid-nineteenth-century wagon train tragedy draws on the perspectives of one of its survivors, Sarah Graves, recounting how her new husband and she joined the Donner party on their California-bound journey and encountered violent perils, in an account that also offers insight into the scientific reasons that some died while others survived. 20,000 first printing.
A chronicle of the mid-nineteenth-century wagon train tragedy draws on the perspectives of one of its survivors, Sarah Graves, recounting how she and her new husband joined the Donner party on their California-bound journey and encountered violent perils.
This historical account of the tragic Donner Party is viewed through the eyes of one of its survivors, a 21-year-old woman who had been married only a few months before the trek to California began. Brown, the author of Under a Flaming Sky: The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894, tells the story of Sarah Graves' battle for survival through the use of modern psychological, physiological, forensic and archaeological perspectives. General readers will appreciate the use of these modern biology and psychology techniques to explore the motivations and challenges of these pioneers, as well as their fatal miscalculations, in greater depth. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier
&;An ideal pairing of talent and material.&; Engrossing.&; A deft and ambitious storyteller.&; &; Mary Roach, New York Times Book Review
In April of 1846, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings. Seven months later, after joining a party of pioneers led by George Donner, they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. In early December, starving and desperate, Sarah and fourteen others set out for California on snowshoes, and, over the next thirty-two days, endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors.
In this gripping narrative, New York Times bestselling author Daniel James Brown sheds new light on one of the most legendary events in American history. Following every painful footstep of Sarah&;s journey with the Donner Party, Brown produces a tale both spellbinding and richly informative.
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- New York : William Morrow, 2009.
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