Indifferent Stars Above, The: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party (P.S.)

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However, at the same time we begin to become familiar with the Graves family -- we are also introduced to a man named Lansford Hastings, a shady character and author of The Emigrants’ Guide to Oregon and California. At the same time in which we as readers are getting to connect with the Graves family, Brown begins to weave in details about Hastings and his less than benevolent motivations. In fact, it would be a shortcut of Hastings’ own devising as well as his motive of personal enrichment would ultimately doom the Donner Party. In this gripping narrative, Brown reveals the extremes of endurance that underlie the history of this nation, and more than that, of humanity in any part of the world, even today, surviving great peril in search of a better life.”— Nina Burleigh Lastly, I didn't much care for the writing style of the author. It seemed that Brown was, in a weird way, fictionalizing the story while also keeping it at arm's length in terms of emotion. Throughout the entire book, I couldn't tell if it was meant to be read as a story, or as non-fiction. The writing reported very tragic and emotional facts in a very point-blank way, almost like it was taken from academic writing. All in all, it was just a bit of an awkward experience - I found it too straightforward to be a story account, yet too elaborate to be a non-fiction account. (I understand that it may not read this way to everyone.) As to be expected, this book was an emotionally exhausting read. Though I knew going in what the basic story of the Donner Party was, reading about the details still kept me on the edge of my seat in anticipation of what horror these poor people were to face next. 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.

From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boatand Facing the Mountain comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier Sarah's father, a Vermonter, was the only member of the party familiar with snowshoes. Under his instruction, fifteen sets of snowshoes were hastily constructed from oxbows and rawhide, and on December 15, Sarah and fourteen other relatively young, healthy people set out for California on foot, hoping to get relief for the others. Over the next thirty-two days they endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors. But I think what Sarah’s story tells us is that there were in fact heroes in the Donner Party, and that heroes are sometimes the most ordinary-seeming people. It reminds us that as ordinary as we might be, we can, if we choose, take the harder road, walk forth bravely under the indifferent stars. We can hazard the ravages of chance. We can choose to endure what seems unendurable, and thereby open up the possibility of prevailing. We can awaken to the world as it is, and, seeing it with eyes wide open, we can nevertheless embrace hope rather than despair. When all is said and done, I think the story tells us that hope is the hero’s domain, not the fool’s.” This wasn’t an easy read for me as the story is harrowing and relentless. There were times in the book where I felt it was just too heart-breaking to continue as every chapter was taking its toll on me. I think the author did a terrific job weaving this account and I liked how he tried to give the reader a sense of time and place and a terrific understanding of the people, customs, and terrain of the mid 1800s California. It’s unusually poetic writing for a history book, too. At times, it gets mawkish (see: the ending chapter), but other times it was just lovely to enjoy:I am so glad I finally read a book about the Donner Part. This book is well researched, superbly written and emotionally devastating. The Donner Party was made up mostly of family’s men, women, and children moving west to California looking for a better life and living. Misfortune left them stranded in the winter mountains, and they were forced to survive, by any means necessary. Half did not survive. This is their story. The smells of wood smoke, of frying bacon, of coffee, and of baking pies melded together and drifted among the wagons.”

The poem is intriguing; Who was that person? And why that indifference? A powerful tragic story can be woven,keeping in mind the beautiful last two lines'She was more beautiful than thy first love,but now lies under boards' For those of you who are on the fence, I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia article or Caitlyn Doughty’s excellent summary of the events. If you can make it through those, you’ll make it fine through the book. Knowing the end of the story doesn’t take away from the book at all. The Indifferent Stars Above is rich with historical details that will keep you reading.

What I did know, before reading this, was the bare minimum: The Donner family and several other families migrating to California for a better life, became trapped in the snowy Sierra Nevada mountains. Many died. Many resorted to cannibalism. Cannibalism. Cannibalism. Cannibalism. I feel like it can't be just me who primarily associated them with that word and few others. I also feel like it can't be just me who never gave too much thought to the other families traveling with the Donner brothers, wives and children. The book did go into somewhat great detail on the cannibalism but it wasn't gratuitous and the details were not exploitative. It also remedied the issue of not knowing much about the other members of the Party. William Butler Yeats lived between 1865 and 1939 and is considered to be one of the foremost poets in Irish and British literature. A great many of his works are commonly read and remembered today, including ‘ The Second Coming‘. He is also remembered for having won a Nobel Prize in Literature. He is also known for highly symbolic and imagery-based works that constitute both physical and abstract meanings.