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

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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. For those who have gone before, I bow down in appreciation of the hardships and suffering that they endured for our sakes and the sakes of future generations. I only have a seven minute drive to work, but if I’m two blocks down the road the only thing I will turn around for is my wallet or phone, it seems like too much work to turn back for anything else. The Indifferent Stars Above is an ideal pairing of talent and material…With tragedy of this scale an unadorned telling of the events speaks loudest…The understatement of simple circumstances delivers the emotional wallop all by itself.

I dreamed that one had died in a strange place Near no accustomed hand; And they had nailed the boards above her face, The peasants of that land, Wondering to lay her in that solitude, And raised above her mound A cross they had made out of two bits of Wood And planted Cypress round; And left her to the indifferent stars above Until I carved these Words: She was more beautiful than thy first love, But now lies under boards. He also followed the path taken by Sarah and her family to see first-hand the type of land they covered and help the reader better appreciate the hardships endured.More Hamburger icon An icon used to represent a menu that can be toggled by interacting with this icon. I was so fascinated and intrigued by this story, which I'd only ever heard about in vague details, that I decided to read the book for myself. Daniel James Brown does a fine job of turning the Donner Party fiasco into a narrative that humanises people whose experiences in the Sierra Nevada mountain range are so divorced from anything the reader has likely ever experienced. It is also interesting that in the dreamscape, the speaker is only able to communicate this idea by carving it on the grave marker of the woman, as though he wants her to know about this message, as well as the rest of the world — or at least, the rest of the foreign world, the one who never knew her at all.

You don't often get the chance to use the words "ghastly" and "harrowing" completely without irony, but I think they fit here. Men rushed to support the wagon, grabbing at the spokes of the wheels and the planked sides, trying to hold it against the pull of gravity. Whether we like to admit it or not, we as people have always been fascinated by stories that expose the darker side of human nature. Sarah Graves travelled through actual hell and he takes tons of time jacking himself off to how it must feel to see your father and husband die but her sister was right fucking there the whole time and he doesn’t even consider that maybe they might possibly have some sort of bond? And I spent nearly the entire story knowing how things would end up and feeling completely helpless while I watched it all unfold.

The author tells an informative story in a way that both honors the memory of the people involved and puts it into historical perspective. Because we dare to hope—even when doing so might undo us—we leave the worlds we create behind us, swirling in our wakes, eternal and effervescent with the beauty of our aspirations.

The book focuses on Sarah Graves, newly married and deeply in love, as she travels across the country with her family. Sutter] keeps 600 to 800 Indians in a complete state of Slavery and as I had the mortification of seeing them dine I may give a short description, 10 or 15 Troughs 3 or 4 feet long were brought out of the cook room and seated in the Broiling sun. Interestingly, author Daniel Brown has a connection with the Graves family, if a tenuous one; his great-uncle George Foster met the Graves while on their way west. Some even conspired to kill those still alive, such as the two native Miwok boys who accompanied them.I found out about this book through Last Podcast on the Left, which did a phenomenal three-part episode series on the Donner Party and used this book as the primary source for their information.