A FEW YEARS back, my family made its own venture into the wilderness, moving from the urban sprawl of Los Angeles to the expansive green hills of the Hudson Valley. It’s paradise, yet the climate where we live can be wretched and unforgiving, the land hilly and full of stones. We marvel aloud at the tenacity and sheer strength of this area’s early settlers, the people who cleared all the trees, built the stone walls that still stand. We are awed by what they accomplished, and quite certain we, with our reliance on power tools, the internet, and central heating, would not have a prayer of replicating their achievements.
Novelist and memoirist Gabrielle Burton shares her own amazement at the resilience of our forefathers and mothers in her lucid, provocative novel, Impatient With Desire. The book tells the story of Tamsen Donner, wife of George Donner, leader of the infamous Oregon trail pioneers. To illuminate Tamsen’s circumstances and spirit, Burton gives us her version of Tamsen’s journal. (Burton spent over three decades researching Tamsen’s story, and uses her existing letters, some to her beloved sister, as the basis for some of the narrative and language.)
We learn that Tamsen wanted this adventure as much, perhaps more, than her husband. She was a traveller, and a student, and as much a partner to her husband as her times would allow. And when winter trapped the party in the Sierra Nevadas and forced the Donners into the cannibalism that made them notorious, Tamsen agonized over how her desire for adventure had led her five children into peril. The novel is wonderful on its own, presenting the darkest circumstances without sensationalizing or moralizing, but even better when read alongside Burton’s memoir of her own family’s retracing of the Donner party’s journey, Searching for Tamsen Donner. Burton helps us understand the deep choices every mother makes between self, partner and children, and in the process, brings to life not just Tamsen, but the others who cleared and clawed their way across the country just 160 years ago.
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Dear Paige,
I’m so happy Tamsen Donner came to life for you–that’s my deepest hope that readers see her as REAL, a complex woman grappling with possible and impossible choices.
You know, 16 of her 17 extant letters were written to her sister, Betsey, 9 years older, who stayed home but always wanted to know the details of Tamsen’s adventures. As a younger sister myself with my “big sister” nine years older, I’ve always been moved by that.
Thank you for your support–I really appreciate it.
Best,
Gabrielle Burton
I read this on your recommendation, Paige, and was riveted and moved by it. I can’t wait to track down “Searching for Tamsen Donner”.