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Dernière saison dans les Rocheuses
Retour aux sources pour cette expédition de trappeurs, dans la tradition des grands romans d'aventure à l'américaine.
En 1820, aux Amériques, le commerce des fourrures est un moyen périlleux de faire fortune. À peine le jeune William Wyeth s'est-il engagé auprès de la compagnie de trappeurs la plus téméraire de l'État qu'il manque de se faire tuer. Il découvre alors la force des liens entre les hommes, dont la survie ne dépend que de leur solidarité. Chasse au bison, nuits passées à dormir sur des peaux de bête, confrontations aux forces de la nature ou aux tribus indiennes, la vie de trappeur est rude, mais William a soif d'aventures. Il a quitté sa famille pour le grand Ouest, sauvage et indompté. Il devra réunir plus de courage et d'habileté qu'il ait jamais cru avoir pour en sortir vivant.
En 1820, aux Amériques, le commerce des fourrures est un moyen périlleux de faire fortune. À peine le jeune William Wyeth s'est-il engagé auprès de la compagnie de trappeurs la plus téméraire de l'État qu'il manque de se faire tuer. Il découvre alors la force des liens entre les hommes, dont la survie ne dépend que de leur solidarité. Chasse au bison, nuits passées à dormir sur des peaux de bête, confrontations aux forces de la nature ou aux tribus indiennes, la vie de trappeur est rude, mais William a soif d'aventures. Il a quitté sa famille pour le grand Ouest, sauvage et indompté. Il devra réunir plus de courage et d'habileté qu'il ait jamais cru avoir pour en sortir vivant.
266 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 24, 2015
84 people are currently reading
1040 people want to read
About the author
Shannon Burke
8 books50 followersShannon went to college at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He has published four novels: Safelight, Black Flies, Into the Savage Country, and The Brother Years. He has been involved in various film and TV projects, including work on the screenplay for the film Syriana, and he is the co-creator of the Netflix series Outer Banks. From the mid to late nineties he worked as a paramedic in Harlem for the New York City Fire Department. He now lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with his two sons.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews
January 29, 2020
this is a slim, quiet historical novel about the fur trade in the 1820's. this is not to say it is uneventful, just that the way the story is told is in keeping with adventure stories of a bygone era - like jack london-y. which is good, just... quiet.
it reads part frontier adventure story/part western/part coming-of-age story, if that can be said about a book with a protagonist, william wyeth, who is in his twenties. it relates his last gasp of trapping adventure before he plans to settle into sedate domesticity with the woman he loves, who is making no promises about waiting around for him to get his wanderlust out of his system. atta girl!
the adventure parts are great, and include peril of many varieties: bears, snowstorms, betrayal, accidental shootings, ice, thieves, sioux, crow, and blackfoot tribes at war with each other, and ... the british.
there are real-life people sprinkled throughout the book: general ashley, jedediah smith, jim bridger, hugh glass, as well as fictional characters that are all very compelling, especially pegleg and (swoon) the rakish layton. (he is not swoonworthy right off the bat, but believe me, he earns that swoon)
my only complaint is that there was something a little too contemporary-feeling about the dialogue. i can't put my finger on it precisely, but there was something tonally dissonant about it that didn't feel authentic. (which is a word that makes people squirm, i know, but i can't think of a better one right now) the descriptions and landscapes felt completely appropriate and well-researched, and even the non-dialogue narratorial voice, which is frequently lovely:
Youth's bright flame sears the mind and leaves us glorying in the past with an unalloyed affection that does not dim the present but enhances it with fond memories untarnished by their unpleasant parts.
that all feels right, which is why the dialogue in particular stood out to me as "off" somehow.
it's not a big deal, just something i noticed. if you like historical fiction with a male focus (as opposed to historical fiction with voluminous dresses on the cover) or survival-in-the-wilderness tales, this is for you.
it's short, but very well-written.
3.5 from me.
come to my blog!
it reads part frontier adventure story/part western/part coming-of-age story, if that can be said about a book with a protagonist, william wyeth, who is in his twenties. it relates his last gasp of trapping adventure before he plans to settle into sedate domesticity with the woman he loves, who is making no promises about waiting around for him to get his wanderlust out of his system. atta girl!
the adventure parts are great, and include peril of many varieties: bears, snowstorms, betrayal, accidental shootings, ice, thieves, sioux, crow, and blackfoot tribes at war with each other, and ... the british.
there are real-life people sprinkled throughout the book: general ashley, jedediah smith, jim bridger, hugh glass, as well as fictional characters that are all very compelling, especially pegleg and (swoon) the rakish layton. (he is not swoonworthy right off the bat, but believe me, he earns that swoon)
my only complaint is that there was something a little too contemporary-feeling about the dialogue. i can't put my finger on it precisely, but there was something tonally dissonant about it that didn't feel authentic. (which is a word that makes people squirm, i know, but i can't think of a better one right now) the descriptions and landscapes felt completely appropriate and well-researched, and even the non-dialogue narratorial voice, which is frequently lovely:
Youth's bright flame sears the mind and leaves us glorying in the past with an unalloyed affection that does not dim the present but enhances it with fond memories untarnished by their unpleasant parts.
that all feels right, which is why the dialogue in particular stood out to me as "off" somehow.
it's not a big deal, just something i noticed. if you like historical fiction with a male focus (as opposed to historical fiction with voluminous dresses on the cover) or survival-in-the-wilderness tales, this is for you.
it's short, but very well-written.
3.5 from me.
come to my blog!
April 16, 2015
This old-fashioned western set in the Bighorn Range of the 1820s takes us back to the days when reading a novel was pure entertainment. With this third novel, Shannon Burke exhibits once again his deep curiosity about the world and how it works, and his magnificent talent in writing fiction that makes us notice. His versatility of subject matter is extreme: his first two novels were set in modern-day big city-scapes rather than 19th Century landscapes, though his great talent for making morally ambiguous characters facing difficult choices was as suitable then as it is now.
Burke’s second novel Black Flies featured a rookie paramedic on an ambulance crew that serviced New York City’s Harlem district, Station 18. Reviewed here by Liesl Schillinger writing in the New York Times, it is described as a reading experience not unlike war reporting. It is a deeply felt, visual, and psychological portrait of a young man learning in the school of hard streets and hard blows.
Now Burke’s third novel is also a psychological novel, though set in big sky country rather than the fast lanes of New York City. The young man narrating, William Wyeth, came from a good family who thought humility important in forming character, and he left home angry and eager to flog what he suspected were his natural gifts in the wide world west of the Mississippi, in unsettled lands. From the first pages when we sink into the muddy streets of a frontier-town St. Louis, we are more than a century away from fifty states and a United States that resembles our own.
The real riches in this novel come from thrilling acts of stupidity and the resulting heroism among the team of men who banded together as trappers. We come to know the men, their faults and their skills, and miss them as they meet their end with a crazy bravery that many of us will never know. Two of the men among the band are artists of a sort: one pens a record of the years together and the other sketches with charcoal the scenes they encounter. Another man is so contrary and full of vinegar that the men consider killing him to keep themselves from aggravation. In the end every man is needed for what they bring, good and bad, and it is Burke’s skill that brings this realization home to us.
This wonderful novel brings with it the scent of cold, fresh air and the color of rocks in the streambed of a fast-moving creek surrounded by tall evergreens shading snow. The work is hard, and though the financial gains aren’t usually great, the pleasure that the men take in working outdoors in a constantly changing landscape is payment in part. Indians of various tribes feature in the story, and the tale wouldn’t be the same without their shifting loyalties to the white intruders on their land.
A strong female character, Alene Chevalier, is the heartthrob that balances the male egos-gone-wild, and she doesn’t seem out of place in this romantic view of the western edge of civilization. All in all, this novel has just about everything one would want for a hot summer weekend or a snowbound winter day. The writing is assured, the story ample, and the author capable of involving us in adventures of long ago. Bravo, Burke!
A final note: this would also make a great teen title that teachers could add to a syllabus reading list or summer reads. It is beautifully and engagingly written and so instructive in observation about personalities that mesh or grate. And of course, it fills the mind with images of Indians and the differences in their lifestyles and culture.
Burke’s second novel Black Flies featured a rookie paramedic on an ambulance crew that serviced New York City’s Harlem district, Station 18. Reviewed here by Liesl Schillinger writing in the New York Times, it is described as a reading experience not unlike war reporting. It is a deeply felt, visual, and psychological portrait of a young man learning in the school of hard streets and hard blows.
Now Burke’s third novel is also a psychological novel, though set in big sky country rather than the fast lanes of New York City. The young man narrating, William Wyeth, came from a good family who thought humility important in forming character, and he left home angry and eager to flog what he suspected were his natural gifts in the wide world west of the Mississippi, in unsettled lands. From the first pages when we sink into the muddy streets of a frontier-town St. Louis, we are more than a century away from fifty states and a United States that resembles our own.
The real riches in this novel come from thrilling acts of stupidity and the resulting heroism among the team of men who banded together as trappers. We come to know the men, their faults and their skills, and miss them as they meet their end with a crazy bravery that many of us will never know. Two of the men among the band are artists of a sort: one pens a record of the years together and the other sketches with charcoal the scenes they encounter. Another man is so contrary and full of vinegar that the men consider killing him to keep themselves from aggravation. In the end every man is needed for what they bring, good and bad, and it is Burke’s skill that brings this realization home to us.
This wonderful novel brings with it the scent of cold, fresh air and the color of rocks in the streambed of a fast-moving creek surrounded by tall evergreens shading snow. The work is hard, and though the financial gains aren’t usually great, the pleasure that the men take in working outdoors in a constantly changing landscape is payment in part. Indians of various tribes feature in the story, and the tale wouldn’t be the same without their shifting loyalties to the white intruders on their land.
A strong female character, Alene Chevalier, is the heartthrob that balances the male egos-gone-wild, and she doesn’t seem out of place in this romantic view of the western edge of civilization. All in all, this novel has just about everything one would want for a hot summer weekend or a snowbound winter day. The writing is assured, the story ample, and the author capable of involving us in adventures of long ago. Bravo, Burke!
A final note: this would also make a great teen title that teachers could add to a syllabus reading list or summer reads. It is beautifully and engagingly written and so instructive in observation about personalities that mesh or grate. And of course, it fills the mind with images of Indians and the differences in their lifestyles and culture.
February 26, 2017
I've been on a GR hiatus, so bear with me as I ease back into things. Some of these reviews will be short since some time has passed since my reading.
Shannon Burke's "Into the Savage Country" is an impressive historical novel that occupies a very similar time, place, and subject as "The Revenant." In fact, if you keep your eyes peeled, you'll even see a few of the same characters (Hugh Glass, Jim Bridger). But they're only peripheral characters. The main actors are a young trio (William Wyeth, W.A. Ferris, and Henry Layton) of aspiring mountain men and fur trappers. Another major figure, Alene Chevalier, a French-Indian tanner of hides, is the novel long love interest of Wyeth, who is the teller of tale.
The story is historically well grounded, and real events such as the competition between American and British fur companies are a major part of the story. That said, the novel never really feels like an historical novel. That's because Burke brings all the main characters to life. These are not cardboard characters. For example, Arlene is both calculating and caring. The calculating is for survival, as her mixed heritage is usually held against her. Wyeth is simply a young man testing and growing as person. Most complex of all is Henry Layton, the captain of the novel's big fur gathering expedition, who can be charming one minute, even heroic, and mean as hell the next. You never really hate the guy, because he's obviously tormented by his own divisions. What's impressive there is that is how the characters view Layton. That kind of harmony between reader and story doesn't happen as much as it should. Highly recommended.
Shannon Burke's "Into the Savage Country" is an impressive historical novel that occupies a very similar time, place, and subject as "The Revenant." In fact, if you keep your eyes peeled, you'll even see a few of the same characters (Hugh Glass, Jim Bridger). But they're only peripheral characters. The main actors are a young trio (William Wyeth, W.A. Ferris, and Henry Layton) of aspiring mountain men and fur trappers. Another major figure, Alene Chevalier, a French-Indian tanner of hides, is the novel long love interest of Wyeth, who is the teller of tale.
The story is historically well grounded, and real events such as the competition between American and British fur companies are a major part of the story. That said, the novel never really feels like an historical novel. That's because Burke brings all the main characters to life. These are not cardboard characters. For example, Arlene is both calculating and caring. The calculating is for survival, as her mixed heritage is usually held against her. Wyeth is simply a young man testing and growing as person. Most complex of all is Henry Layton, the captain of the novel's big fur gathering expedition, who can be charming one minute, even heroic, and mean as hell the next. You never really hate the guy, because he's obviously tormented by his own divisions. What's impressive there is that is how the characters view Layton. That kind of harmony between reader and story doesn't happen as much as it should. Highly recommended.
November 8, 2014
A refreshing novel that doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is - a good old-fashioned adventure story, told with great skill. Fur trappers during the opening of the American west facing down nasty weather, natives, the British and the Spanish. The protagonist is likeable and discovers over the course of the story what bravery means. A very entertaining throwback sort of book.
August 13, 2015
I enjoyed Shannon Burke’s “Into the Savage Country” for many reasons. I appreciated the complexity of its important characters, I acquired a better sense of the fur-trapping business and its operations in the drainages of the Rocky Mountains during the late 1820s, I applaud the author for visual authenticity of terrain and frontier settlements, I enjoyed his succinctness of dialogue and the uncluttered flow of first person narrative, and I compliment his creative selection of resolution-demanding crisis situations. The novel entertained me. I have only one criticism.
The novel is an adventure story and, secondarily, a love story. It begins in St. Louis in June 1826. A young man from a farming family in Pennsylvania, rejecting his father’s expectation that he devote his life to farming and his criticism that he is “fainthearted and vacillating,” driven by the desire to seek adventure, test himself, and obtain fortune to prove his father’s criticisms to be false, William Wyeth joins a fur-trapping company preparing to leave St. Louis. Before leaving he meets Alene Chevalier, an attractive French woman of one-quarter Indian ancestry. His attempt to initiate a romantic relationship is rebuffed. The brigade to which he is assigned consists mostly of veteran trappers. He earns quickly their acceptance. He is wounded in a large buffalo hunt and is cared for by his companions. They move him to a frontier settlement to recover. Here he meets, again, Alene. Eventually, they become engaged. As spring approaches, rather than return to St. Louis with Alene to be married, William decides to spend the ensuing spring, summer, and fall months in the wild trapping for a newly-formed fur company. His quest for adventure and need to validate himself compel him to exact an agreement from Alene. She will wait for him until the beginning of winter. Should he not return by then, she will depart for St. Louis to live her life without him. Much happens during the interim: battles, victories, reversals, competitions, heroics, treachery.
Strong character portrayal is a major dynamic to the success of the novel.
William Wyeth is a perceptive person who abhors selfishness and treachery yet is able to find some measure of good in the most flawed individual. Because of this attribute he is able to grow beyond preconceived opinions to forge, ultimately, beneficial relationships. He perceives the 19-year-old greenhorn Ferris to be a conceited, know-it-all attempting to win favor with the members of the brigade by correcting inaccuracies they make or by imparting information of which he believes they should be cognizant.
William describes Ferris at first this way: “that he secretly set himself above us. Ferris’s father, we’d all heard, was a physician and a man of wealth, and Ferris had paid a lump sum to the taken on, as they’d not thought he’d make it halfway up the Missouri. The knowledge of this pampered upbringing along with his self-satisfied manner damned him in my mind.”
Eventually, William discovers that Ferris is an extremely perceptive person, curious about many things, courageous, unwilling to enable injustice, kind, and thoroughly reliable. Ferris becomes William’s closest friend. He is one of three characters vital to the plot.
A character that initially William despises but eventually tolerates and finally appreciates is the mercurial Henry Layton, a St. Louis dandy whose father owns half the warehouses along the waterfront of the city. William describes him as “an infamous bachelor: a twenty-four-year-old dandy considered to be the most intelligent, unpleasant, and mischievous young man in St. Louis.” Encountering Layton at Alene’s residence, wearing new leggings and deerskin to impress her prior to his departure, William is mocked by Layton, who is wearing a black tailcoat and white cravat. “What brings you here in that costume, Wyeth? Are you off to hunt squirrels and water rats?” Layton eventually funds a new fur-trapping company, appoints himself its captain, entices William, the companions of his first season of trapping, and Jedediah Smith to sign on by promising huge personal profits for their labor.
Alene warns William that accepting Layton’s offer is a major mistake. “… you only see the charismatic side now. The part when he persuades. When he wheedles. When he promises. When he uses all his charm and cunning and good nature and energy and cleverness to arrange things so men follow him … But when it is necessary for him to fulfill his promises he will feel the necessity as a form of bondage and he will wilt and turn sour and ugly. Then you will see the weak, contemptuous part of his soul. … He has chosen you because he saw I was partial to you. Now he means to ruin you.”
Layton proves in fact to be imperious, mercilessly fault-finding, and selectively cruel. His men quickly hate him. William gradually learns that Layton knows that he is psychologically damaged and desires to overcome his “demons.” He proves he is worthy of respect when he engages in crisis situations but he is at his worst when he is inactive and bored. He has the capacity of achieving unparalleled success but equally capable immediately thereafter of snatching from it utter defeat. Layton drives the direction of the plot.
My sole disappointment with this novel is that near its end several very improbable outcomes of important events occur. For instance, Ferris, the best shot of the brigade, must hit an arrow staked in the ground from an impossible distance to prove to Indians the effectiveness of his Pennsylvania long rifle. He himself states that it is an impossible shot. Lives depend on his accuracy. His shot cuts the arrow in half. One very unlikely occurrence may be acceptable to tolerant readers. Several occurrences should not. Still, I enjoyed the book.
The novel is an adventure story and, secondarily, a love story. It begins in St. Louis in June 1826. A young man from a farming family in Pennsylvania, rejecting his father’s expectation that he devote his life to farming and his criticism that he is “fainthearted and vacillating,” driven by the desire to seek adventure, test himself, and obtain fortune to prove his father’s criticisms to be false, William Wyeth joins a fur-trapping company preparing to leave St. Louis. Before leaving he meets Alene Chevalier, an attractive French woman of one-quarter Indian ancestry. His attempt to initiate a romantic relationship is rebuffed. The brigade to which he is assigned consists mostly of veteran trappers. He earns quickly their acceptance. He is wounded in a large buffalo hunt and is cared for by his companions. They move him to a frontier settlement to recover. Here he meets, again, Alene. Eventually, they become engaged. As spring approaches, rather than return to St. Louis with Alene to be married, William decides to spend the ensuing spring, summer, and fall months in the wild trapping for a newly-formed fur company. His quest for adventure and need to validate himself compel him to exact an agreement from Alene. She will wait for him until the beginning of winter. Should he not return by then, she will depart for St. Louis to live her life without him. Much happens during the interim: battles, victories, reversals, competitions, heroics, treachery.
Strong character portrayal is a major dynamic to the success of the novel.
William Wyeth is a perceptive person who abhors selfishness and treachery yet is able to find some measure of good in the most flawed individual. Because of this attribute he is able to grow beyond preconceived opinions to forge, ultimately, beneficial relationships. He perceives the 19-year-old greenhorn Ferris to be a conceited, know-it-all attempting to win favor with the members of the brigade by correcting inaccuracies they make or by imparting information of which he believes they should be cognizant.
William describes Ferris at first this way: “that he secretly set himself above us. Ferris’s father, we’d all heard, was a physician and a man of wealth, and Ferris had paid a lump sum to the taken on, as they’d not thought he’d make it halfway up the Missouri. The knowledge of this pampered upbringing along with his self-satisfied manner damned him in my mind.”
Eventually, William discovers that Ferris is an extremely perceptive person, curious about many things, courageous, unwilling to enable injustice, kind, and thoroughly reliable. Ferris becomes William’s closest friend. He is one of three characters vital to the plot.
A character that initially William despises but eventually tolerates and finally appreciates is the mercurial Henry Layton, a St. Louis dandy whose father owns half the warehouses along the waterfront of the city. William describes him as “an infamous bachelor: a twenty-four-year-old dandy considered to be the most intelligent, unpleasant, and mischievous young man in St. Louis.” Encountering Layton at Alene’s residence, wearing new leggings and deerskin to impress her prior to his departure, William is mocked by Layton, who is wearing a black tailcoat and white cravat. “What brings you here in that costume, Wyeth? Are you off to hunt squirrels and water rats?” Layton eventually funds a new fur-trapping company, appoints himself its captain, entices William, the companions of his first season of trapping, and Jedediah Smith to sign on by promising huge personal profits for their labor.
Alene warns William that accepting Layton’s offer is a major mistake. “… you only see the charismatic side now. The part when he persuades. When he wheedles. When he promises. When he uses all his charm and cunning and good nature and energy and cleverness to arrange things so men follow him … But when it is necessary for him to fulfill his promises he will feel the necessity as a form of bondage and he will wilt and turn sour and ugly. Then you will see the weak, contemptuous part of his soul. … He has chosen you because he saw I was partial to you. Now he means to ruin you.”
Layton proves in fact to be imperious, mercilessly fault-finding, and selectively cruel. His men quickly hate him. William gradually learns that Layton knows that he is psychologically damaged and desires to overcome his “demons.” He proves he is worthy of respect when he engages in crisis situations but he is at his worst when he is inactive and bored. He has the capacity of achieving unparalleled success but equally capable immediately thereafter of snatching from it utter defeat. Layton drives the direction of the plot.
My sole disappointment with this novel is that near its end several very improbable outcomes of important events occur. For instance, Ferris, the best shot of the brigade, must hit an arrow staked in the ground from an impossible distance to prove to Indians the effectiveness of his Pennsylvania long rifle. He himself states that it is an impossible shot. Lives depend on his accuracy. His shot cuts the arrow in half. One very unlikely occurrence may be acceptable to tolerant readers. Several occurrences should not. Still, I enjoyed the book.
May 27, 2015
From High Country News, May 25, 2015
The classic Western frontier story is an archetype of the hero’s journey: A young man, off to seek his fortune in the West, enters the wilderness to prove himself and emerges both stronger and wiser. Into the Savage Country follows this pattern, but charismatic characters, good humor, lively language and nail-biting scenes make Shannon Burke’s novel feel as fresh and thrilling as the first time this kind of story was told.
In 1826, 22-year-old William Wyeth is a hunter selling furs in St. Louis. He and the eventual love of his life, Alene Chevalier, meet Western cute, when he hires her to brain-tan some hides. Wyeth isn’t the only one sweet on Alene — so is Henry Layton, a hot-headed braggart who “could buy you a drink and do a good deed, but he could not do it without others knowing he’d done it.”
William embarks on a fur-trapping expedition, because, he says, “I was fated to test my mettle in the West. If I’d not make a fortune … I’d live my life up to the hilt and satisfy that inner craving and have something to talk about in my dotage.”
He learns from seasoned trappers, including historical figures like legendary mountain men Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger. William observes of Bridger, “Though he was as ignorant of book learning as the day he was born, he possessed all the accomplishments needed west of the Mississippi.”
When William re-encounters Alene and Henry at a U.S. Army fort, Henry invites him to join a Smith-led expedition to Wyoming’s Wind River Range, where wild -animals still abound, offering “the last, best chance of a big take.”
Burke vividly conveys the complex interactions between French and American trappers, the Crow, the Blackfoot and British soldiers. Burke’s characters constantly evolve and surprise. Blackfoot warrior Red Elk, for example, at first appears despicable but emerges as a dignified man of canny intelligence. Even Henry reveals endearing qualities.
Into The Savage Country rings with the conviction that a Western story is supposed to be fun above all, and that it need not sacrifice historical accuracy and complexity in order to entertain the reader.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/47.9/a-tra...
The classic Western frontier story is an archetype of the hero’s journey: A young man, off to seek his fortune in the West, enters the wilderness to prove himself and emerges both stronger and wiser. Into the Savage Country follows this pattern, but charismatic characters, good humor, lively language and nail-biting scenes make Shannon Burke’s novel feel as fresh and thrilling as the first time this kind of story was told.
In 1826, 22-year-old William Wyeth is a hunter selling furs in St. Louis. He and the eventual love of his life, Alene Chevalier, meet Western cute, when he hires her to brain-tan some hides. Wyeth isn’t the only one sweet on Alene — so is Henry Layton, a hot-headed braggart who “could buy you a drink and do a good deed, but he could not do it without others knowing he’d done it.”
William embarks on a fur-trapping expedition, because, he says, “I was fated to test my mettle in the West. If I’d not make a fortune … I’d live my life up to the hilt and satisfy that inner craving and have something to talk about in my dotage.”
He learns from seasoned trappers, including historical figures like legendary mountain men Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger. William observes of Bridger, “Though he was as ignorant of book learning as the day he was born, he possessed all the accomplishments needed west of the Mississippi.”
When William re-encounters Alene and Henry at a U.S. Army fort, Henry invites him to join a Smith-led expedition to Wyoming’s Wind River Range, where wild -animals still abound, offering “the last, best chance of a big take.”
Burke vividly conveys the complex interactions between French and American trappers, the Crow, the Blackfoot and British soldiers. Burke’s characters constantly evolve and surprise. Blackfoot warrior Red Elk, for example, at first appears despicable but emerges as a dignified man of canny intelligence. Even Henry reveals endearing qualities.
Into The Savage Country rings with the conviction that a Western story is supposed to be fun above all, and that it need not sacrifice historical accuracy and complexity in order to entertain the reader.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/47.9/a-tra...
February 27, 2016
This was a rousing adventure story, a coming of age story and a love story all in one.
It’s early in the 19th century and anything west of St. Louis is ‘Savage Country”. Young William Wyeth has come to St. Louis looking to prove to his family he is not a dreamer. Seeking both adventure and a fortune Wyeth joins a trapping brigade and sets out to prove himself. When he is injured he’s sent back to St. Louis where he is nursed by a woman who has little use for trappers, her father was a trapper and she wants no part of being a trapper’s wife. But William falls in love and soon Alene accepts his marriage proposal. But adventure comes knocking again and William leaves Alene after joining in a new brigade as a part owner and the promise of a fortune at the end. He vows to return before a year goes by, a promise he may find hard to keep.
This was a really interesting story, I learned a lot about the trapping business, and just how dangerous it could be. Along the way there are lots of adventures and near death experiences, but the group of men from very disparate lives form a lasting bond as they fight off the British, Natives, and Spanish not to mention treachery among their brigade, the elements and wild animals. The writing was so descriptive I felt as if I were in Big Sky country. I was fully immersed in the storyline and I loved how the characters changed over the time they spent together. Some don’t make back it back home but those who do have some stirring tales to share.
It’s early in the 19th century and anything west of St. Louis is ‘Savage Country”. Young William Wyeth has come to St. Louis looking to prove to his family he is not a dreamer. Seeking both adventure and a fortune Wyeth joins a trapping brigade and sets out to prove himself. When he is injured he’s sent back to St. Louis where he is nursed by a woman who has little use for trappers, her father was a trapper and she wants no part of being a trapper’s wife. But William falls in love and soon Alene accepts his marriage proposal. But adventure comes knocking again and William leaves Alene after joining in a new brigade as a part owner and the promise of a fortune at the end. He vows to return before a year goes by, a promise he may find hard to keep.
This was a really interesting story, I learned a lot about the trapping business, and just how dangerous it could be. Along the way there are lots of adventures and near death experiences, but the group of men from very disparate lives form a lasting bond as they fight off the British, Natives, and Spanish not to mention treachery among their brigade, the elements and wild animals. The writing was so descriptive I felt as if I were in Big Sky country. I was fully immersed in the storyline and I loved how the characters changed over the time they spent together. Some don’t make back it back home but those who do have some stirring tales to share.
June 7, 2015
I really, really enjoyed reading this book. It is, as many reviewers said, an old fashioned adventure story and a western. But the author also did a superb job of describing the personalities of the men who take part in it, and how their individual characteristics influence each other. The main characters are quite young, and they are daring to try trapping beaver in the remote western mountains for a variety of reasons, from needing to prove themselves to parents, to greed, to the naive idea that this would be a fairly rapid way to make a "grubstake" to start a good life in the settled part of the young United States.
The history is very accurate. And it was a fairly brief period of history because the once abundant beaver fairly rapidly were trapped into near extinction when the fashion for beaver skin hats abounded. The variations in the native tribes dealing with the trappers and the tremendous competition between the American, French, Mexicans, and British for the mountain west in the 1820s enriches the story. Trapping beaver was a brutal, dangerous life, but there was camaraderie within each trapping brigade, as well an individual conflict.
The tale was told in detail, but the story line moved very swiftly and it was hard to put down. I highly recommend this for anyone who loves the west and is interested in this lesser known part of the exploration and settlement of America.
The history is very accurate. And it was a fairly brief period of history because the once abundant beaver fairly rapidly were trapped into near extinction when the fashion for beaver skin hats abounded. The variations in the native tribes dealing with the trappers and the tremendous competition between the American, French, Mexicans, and British for the mountain west in the 1820s enriches the story. Trapping beaver was a brutal, dangerous life, but there was camaraderie within each trapping brigade, as well an individual conflict.
The tale was told in detail, but the story line moved very swiftly and it was hard to put down. I highly recommend this for anyone who loves the west and is interested in this lesser known part of the exploration and settlement of America.
November 5, 2021
How come men who want to marry the love of their life *and* pursue their dream career are never accused of wanting to "have it all"??? Especially when that dream includes abandoning your fiancee (who has a history of being abandoned by the men in her life for the fur trade) for the fur trade??? Forget being a mother while pursuing a career, this is the most ridiculous case of trying to have it all that I can think of.
April 28, 2019
I remember the days spent traversing the dark forests, the white rivers, and the far-off mountains. And though I have not forgotten our desperate moments, the dark times do not cling so much as the beauty and companionship, and this is as it should be. ... The hardships and horrors are covered over with time and those hills are so pretty from a distance.
cf W. A. Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains; Francis Parkman, The Oregon Trail; John Tanner, The Falcon
Cover art Mountain Landscape with Indians (detail) by John Mix Stanley (Detroit Institute of Arts)
July 15, 2020
A really good story! I just enjoyed this book.
April 3, 2020
Really 3 1/2 stars. I had a feeling about 2/3 thru that the author was playing with time, and the Acknowledgments confirmed that.
October 3, 2017
3.75 stars. A serenely told story of a band of fur traders--some wild, some considered gentlemen, some one but striving to be the other--striking out into the West in the first half of the 1800s. The writing style involves a lot of telling, which seemingly intentionally slows the pacing--and which I usually don't like, but here it gives a fittingly old-fashioned quality to the writing that suits the time and the main protagonist and the tale itself.
So while the group encounters friendly and hostile Native Americans; copes with antagonized and antagonistic British trappers; is threatened with imprisonment; experiences cruel and potentially fatal betrayal by one of their own; faces the wild and its many dangers; suffers grave wounds; and saves each other's skin countless times--including after foolish and easily avoided situations such as literally waking a bear and baiting an injured bull--you aren't necessarily going to be on the edge of your seat while you read about all of it.
But there is a deeper, quiet, surprisingly affecting story beneath the Western adventure, which is about trust, loyalty, sometimes begrudging but deeply felt affection, discovery of self-worth, celebrating differences, and love. It's the pacing and tone of the story that allows for all of those elements to feel real.
I keep thinking about this one, and when I began the book I wouldn't have predicted how it's sticking with me now.
So while the group encounters friendly and hostile Native Americans; copes with antagonized and antagonistic British trappers; is threatened with imprisonment; experiences cruel and potentially fatal betrayal by one of their own; faces the wild and its many dangers; suffers grave wounds; and saves each other's skin countless times--including after foolish and easily avoided situations such as literally waking a bear and baiting an injured bull--you aren't necessarily going to be on the edge of your seat while you read about all of it.
But there is a deeper, quiet, surprisingly affecting story beneath the Western adventure, which is about trust, loyalty, sometimes begrudging but deeply felt affection, discovery of self-worth, celebrating differences, and love. It's the pacing and tone of the story that allows for all of those elements to feel real.
I keep thinking about this one, and when I began the book I wouldn't have predicted how it's sticking with me now.
January 19, 2015
A sweeping Northwestern that isn't really what you would expect but more of a testament to the bravery (and stupidity)of those trappers and adventurers who settled the Pacific Northwest. Our hero William Wyeth decides to strike out on his own and joins a fur trapping expedition led by a crazy man. There are Indians, bears and unique individuals along the way but for William, it is a journey to find out what kind of man he is. We see how the land is being divided up, fought over and stripped of it's bounty and we see how the native Americans will lose in the deal. William loves a woman he leaves frequently because the lure of the adventure becomes too much. For those who loved "Lonesome Dove" but want it in Washington state, this is your kind of book. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.
March 26, 2015
Burke bothers little with initially fleshing out his main character, William Wyeth, but that’s because he doesn’t need to. The story, set in the West in the 1820s amidst the risky world of fur trapping, is enthralling and suspenseful from the start. I know little about fur trapping and even less about the political upheaval surrounding it at the time, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying every page. Burke paints an extraordinarily vivid picture of the American West—I could see the hills, trees, snow. There’s a horse race partway through the book that was a fantastic bit of writing. As Wyeth’s character develops more, I became deeply attached to him. The story has fun moments (some romance) and lots of action, though it takes a bit for the plot to really get moving. Still, it’s a great adventure story and I loved it.
October 23, 2016
Story boring. Main characters hollow, uninteresting, shallow, and/or unrelatable. Historical references missing, incorrect, misleading, and/or boring. I will not read this author again. Read The Big Sky (A.B. Guthrie), Across the Wide Missouri (Bernard DeVoto), The Beaver Men (Mari Sandoz), Life in the Far West (George Frederick Ruxton), Bill Sublette: Mountain Man (John Sunder), Mountain Men and Fur Traders of the Far West (Hafen and Carter), Bent's Fort (David Lavender), or Battle for the West: Fur Traders and the Birth of Western Canada (Daniel Francis). All of these are superior books: accurate and entertaining.
March 7, 2016
Takes you into the Rockies to experience life as a mountain man during the waning days of the fur trading period. The author strikes a nice balance of storytelling without overdoing the drama and colorful dialect that makes tales from that era hard to read at times. Into the Savage Country is an authentic tale that kept the interest and uncertainty up until the end. Did a nice job of recreating the challenges of wrestling a living out of the wild American frontier.
April 23, 2015
I liked the book fine, but it was slow going and gruesome at times.
January 29, 2018
C'est l'un des plus beaux livres que j'ai lu.Sublime du début à la fin, un magnifique roman d'aventure e pleine nature.
May 6, 2015
America’s fur trappers and early Western explorers (Territories west of St. Louis, from the Great Plains to the Pacific Northwest, 1826 -1829): Passions run hot about America’s West, but imagine being captivated by fur trappers, early 19th-century explorers. You will be after reading Into the Savage Country. These so-called mountain men, hunted, preserved, traded, and blazed our “magnificent country. Fertile and beautiful and savage and the whole world thirsting after it.”
Told through the personal narrative of William Wyeth, looking back on three glorious, reckless years when he left St. Louis at age 22 to join a fur trapping brigade that headed 1500 miles up the Missouri River, a “soul-crushing” journey reminiscent of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Those famous explorers were backed by a President; Wyeth’s companions had only the backings of themselves, stirred by an “unquenchable desire for accomplishment, for recognition, for glory.” Muscular storytelling, as good as it gets.
Taking us inside his yearnings, motivations, and fears, Wyeth’s memories are of the “world’s great heart beating inside me.” Fresh and action-packed because his account comes from a diary he kept at the time using a quill pen, written in “parchment notebooks with velum covers.” Since the real mountain men kept journals, fictional Wyeth’s tales feel authentic.
Lest you assume trapping beavers in the years before they quickly became depleted, or hunting buffalo along rivers, sagebrush, and mountains before the days of cowboys is not the romanticized Western you’re nostalgic for, I invite you to hold the handsome book, with its majestic Mountain Landscape with Indians painting on the cover, and finger thicker pages than most. Its sturdiness portends the adventurers you’re about to meet. Many are legendary explorers who display the same unwritten code of honor Hollywood captured: fairness, justice, courage, survival, patriotism.
You’ll also like the author’s conciseness given the incredible volume of resources on early American fur trading: journals, letters, biographies, research. There’s even a Museum of the Mountain Man, which publishes the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal to “further the knowledge base and discussion of the Rocky Mountain fur trade era.” Precisely what Burke’s novel does for us.
Structured in chapters that read like installments – The Voyage Out, The Settlement, The Far West – the reader is drawn into a time nearly two centuries ago when men were willing to sacrifice their lives for excitement, riches, or to prove something.
The prose flows. Wyeth’s self-deprecating voice is full of youthful restlessness and longing, for beautiful western mountains and a woman he falls for by page four. He feels “at the cusp of a great mystery, infinite, overwhelming, and bewildering.” Indeed, as Wyeth tells us in the opening paragraph, America is at the cusp of a new frontier:
An eye-opening Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit soon-to-close showcases the striking art of the nomadic Great Plains Indian hunters. One reason its garnered rave reviews is their sophisticated artistry was not well-known. On display are painted buffalo hide robes, fur-lined leggings, feathered peace pipes, like the wardrobe and ornamentation visualized in the novel. It too delivers an eye-opener: to a “glorious life that flamed up for a time in the Western mountains.” While there were also “darker moments” – hardships, violence, isolation – Wyeth chooses to downplay these.
He also doesn’t want to bog us down with too many “particulars of the trade.” So I’ll take his lead and not even attempt to describe the “art of fur trading,” except to say you do get a great sense of the particulars from the fur trader’s language: booseway, calumet, castoreum, pommel, cudgel, pemmican, willow trap, hivernant, palavering.
Instead, here’s particulars about a few of the characters:
WYETH: Charms us with his boyish shyness and honesty (“puffed up with self-importance”). Aware he’s different from his farming brothers, he craves “vast, wild spaces.” He fears he’s no match for these “real outdoorsmen, mountain men,” but you’ll see he proves his mettle time and time again: battling hostile tribes, a moose, a grizzly bear, and displaying exceptional horsemanship when the stakes are so high the weight of Western boundary-making seemed to rest on his shoulders. His instant infatuation with Alene Chevalier endures throughout, from their first meeting in St. Louis and then later, fortuitously, when he’s a trader with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. She’s “French with a quarter native blood that showed in her hair and eyes” … all very proper and European in her manners … she trod that middle ground between warmth and propriety.” He courts her as best he can, but she’s a widow in a long mourning who also understands the trapper’s life is exciting for the men but not for the women left behind.
FERRIS: Wyeth admits misjudging Ferris, who joined the brigade at 19. The son of a physician, he seems “small and frail and boneless as a doll,” but his gentleness turns out to be virtuous good-naturedness and a natural confidence in the wilds. What endears us to him is his immense curiosity in everything around him, sketching and painting the scenes Wyeth recorded. They make an interesting pair, and become friends. Named the “White Indian,” for his genuine desire to understand the customs, adornments, and traits of Native Americans, so refreshing given our painful history of negative stereotyping. Burke introduces two famous native chieftains – Long Hair of the Mountain Crow and Red Elk of the Blackfoot – who despite their “excessive pride” are willing to negotiate and seek help. Ferris is likely to also be a real historical figure. Burke acknowledges some that inspired him, but we’re left to imagine who Ferris might be. John Mix Stanley painted the cover, but my guess is Ferris is fashioned from fur trader and painter Alfred Jacob Miller, who sketched and painted hundreds of scenes of Native Americans, mountain men, and grand landscapes. One he’s celebrated for is of Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains, depicted in the novel.
HENRY LAYTON: He’s a charismatic, energetic, boastful womanizing con man from St. Louis who knows nothing about fur trading, but knows how to put together a fine brigade. Led by Jedediah Smith, a real mountain man who like Wyeth set out at 22 to trap beaver under General Ashley, and to this day enjoys a following for having explored more untapped wilderness than any other (www.jedediahsmithsociety.org). Layton has an inconsistent personality of spirited highs and irritating lows. You, like Wyeth, will come to admire his dauntlessness for defending our territories against the British, and just about anything else that stands in the way of making the fortunes he boisterously promised his men.
Who remembers these fur trading explorers from history class? The best of historical fiction is a history light bulb. Entertaining, enlightening – and memorable.
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
Told through the personal narrative of William Wyeth, looking back on three glorious, reckless years when he left St. Louis at age 22 to join a fur trapping brigade that headed 1500 miles up the Missouri River, a “soul-crushing” journey reminiscent of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Those famous explorers were backed by a President; Wyeth’s companions had only the backings of themselves, stirred by an “unquenchable desire for accomplishment, for recognition, for glory.” Muscular storytelling, as good as it gets.
Taking us inside his yearnings, motivations, and fears, Wyeth’s memories are of the “world’s great heart beating inside me.” Fresh and action-packed because his account comes from a diary he kept at the time using a quill pen, written in “parchment notebooks with velum covers.” Since the real mountain men kept journals, fictional Wyeth’s tales feel authentic.
Lest you assume trapping beavers in the years before they quickly became depleted, or hunting buffalo along rivers, sagebrush, and mountains before the days of cowboys is not the romanticized Western you’re nostalgic for, I invite you to hold the handsome book, with its majestic Mountain Landscape with Indians painting on the cover, and finger thicker pages than most. Its sturdiness portends the adventurers you’re about to meet. Many are legendary explorers who display the same unwritten code of honor Hollywood captured: fairness, justice, courage, survival, patriotism.
You’ll also like the author’s conciseness given the incredible volume of resources on early American fur trading: journals, letters, biographies, research. There’s even a Museum of the Mountain Man, which publishes the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade Journal to “further the knowledge base and discussion of the Rocky Mountain fur trade era.” Precisely what Burke’s novel does for us.
Structured in chapters that read like installments – The Voyage Out, The Settlement, The Far West – the reader is drawn into a time nearly two centuries ago when men were willing to sacrifice their lives for excitement, riches, or to prove something.
The prose flows. Wyeth’s self-deprecating voice is full of youthful restlessness and longing, for beautiful western mountains and a woman he falls for by page four. He feels “at the cusp of a great mystery, infinite, overwhelming, and bewildering.” Indeed, as Wyeth tells us in the opening paragraph, America is at the cusp of a new frontier:
“I was twenty-two years old and feverish with the exploits of Smith and Ashley. I followed their accounts in the Gazette and the Intelligencer and calculated their returns and dreamed of their expeditions. The fur trade was warring and commerce and exploration, and above all else in my mind, it was adventure.”Wyeth’s trapping lands are the most pristine west of Missouri. These mountain men opened up Western territories, defined by the Treaty of 1818, which left huge swaths of gorgeous country open. Sought after by the British and of course Americans, these lands were also inhabited by Canadians, French, Spanish traders and many Native American nations: Crow, Sioux, Blackfoot, Gros Venture, Mandan. Wyeth’s adventures span what’s today the States of Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Wyoming. Gigantic wilderness where those “gigantic, lumbering beasts” – buffalo – once roamed.
An eye-opening Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibit soon-to-close showcases the striking art of the nomadic Great Plains Indian hunters. One reason its garnered rave reviews is their sophisticated artistry was not well-known. On display are painted buffalo hide robes, fur-lined leggings, feathered peace pipes, like the wardrobe and ornamentation visualized in the novel. It too delivers an eye-opener: to a “glorious life that flamed up for a time in the Western mountains.” While there were also “darker moments” – hardships, violence, isolation – Wyeth chooses to downplay these.
He also doesn’t want to bog us down with too many “particulars of the trade.” So I’ll take his lead and not even attempt to describe the “art of fur trading,” except to say you do get a great sense of the particulars from the fur trader’s language: booseway, calumet, castoreum, pommel, cudgel, pemmican, willow trap, hivernant, palavering.
Instead, here’s particulars about a few of the characters:
WYETH: Charms us with his boyish shyness and honesty (“puffed up with self-importance”). Aware he’s different from his farming brothers, he craves “vast, wild spaces.” He fears he’s no match for these “real outdoorsmen, mountain men,” but you’ll see he proves his mettle time and time again: battling hostile tribes, a moose, a grizzly bear, and displaying exceptional horsemanship when the stakes are so high the weight of Western boundary-making seemed to rest on his shoulders. His instant infatuation with Alene Chevalier endures throughout, from their first meeting in St. Louis and then later, fortuitously, when he’s a trader with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. She’s “French with a quarter native blood that showed in her hair and eyes” … all very proper and European in her manners … she trod that middle ground between warmth and propriety.” He courts her as best he can, but she’s a widow in a long mourning who also understands the trapper’s life is exciting for the men but not for the women left behind.
FERRIS: Wyeth admits misjudging Ferris, who joined the brigade at 19. The son of a physician, he seems “small and frail and boneless as a doll,” but his gentleness turns out to be virtuous good-naturedness and a natural confidence in the wilds. What endears us to him is his immense curiosity in everything around him, sketching and painting the scenes Wyeth recorded. They make an interesting pair, and become friends. Named the “White Indian,” for his genuine desire to understand the customs, adornments, and traits of Native Americans, so refreshing given our painful history of negative stereotyping. Burke introduces two famous native chieftains – Long Hair of the Mountain Crow and Red Elk of the Blackfoot – who despite their “excessive pride” are willing to negotiate and seek help. Ferris is likely to also be a real historical figure. Burke acknowledges some that inspired him, but we’re left to imagine who Ferris might be. John Mix Stanley painted the cover, but my guess is Ferris is fashioned from fur trader and painter Alfred Jacob Miller, who sketched and painted hundreds of scenes of Native Americans, mountain men, and grand landscapes. One he’s celebrated for is of Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains, depicted in the novel.
HENRY LAYTON: He’s a charismatic, energetic, boastful womanizing con man from St. Louis who knows nothing about fur trading, but knows how to put together a fine brigade. Led by Jedediah Smith, a real mountain man who like Wyeth set out at 22 to trap beaver under General Ashley, and to this day enjoys a following for having explored more untapped wilderness than any other (www.jedediahsmithsociety.org). Layton has an inconsistent personality of spirited highs and irritating lows. You, like Wyeth, will come to admire his dauntlessness for defending our territories against the British, and just about anything else that stands in the way of making the fortunes he boisterously promised his men.
Who remembers these fur trading explorers from history class? The best of historical fiction is a history light bulb. Entertaining, enlightening – and memorable.
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
May 17, 2021
This book moved at the perfect pace and allowed you to feel as though you were progressing into the wilderness. It set up its story skillfully and seamlessly, provides each character enough to play the role they're given, and doesn't try to impress you with frequently repeated sex crimes, cartoonishly gory violence, and descriptions of the texture and color of people's shit, like The Northern Water, and rather, feels like its story tells itself.
It has all the elements of a classic adventure novel, including a doe-eyed protagonist without much of a backstory beyond "I'll show that mean, dead father of mine" and "The wilderness seems cool." I actually didn't understand why the other trappers wanted him around, in the first two expeditions he succeeds only in falling through some ice and getting shot by one of his allies. Nevertheless, his journey is satisfying enough to feel complete at the end. But the real interesting component is the presence of Layton, a character so clearly set up to be the antagonist that even the other characters just seem to be waiting for him to shoot them. And then, he seems to learn from others' reactions to him and so resents his reputation as a villain that he... spends the book trying very hard to change his vaguely sinister and entirely pompous ways. It was an engrossing subversion of the cliche and made the overall narrative that much more compelling.
It has all the elements of a classic adventure novel, including a doe-eyed protagonist without much of a backstory beyond "I'll show that mean, dead father of mine" and "The wilderness seems cool." I actually didn't understand why the other trappers wanted him around, in the first two expeditions he succeeds only in falling through some ice and getting shot by one of his allies. Nevertheless, his journey is satisfying enough to feel complete at the end. But the real interesting component is the presence of Layton, a character so clearly set up to be the antagonist that even the other characters just seem to be waiting for him to shoot them. And then, he seems to learn from others' reactions to him and so resents his reputation as a villain that he... spends the book trying very hard to change his vaguely sinister and entirely pompous ways. It was an engrossing subversion of the cliche and made the overall narrative that much more compelling.
February 24, 2019
Lots of action in this tale of young adventure-seeking William Wyeth. In 1828 he sets out for the “savage country” hoping to make his fortune as a fur-trapping mountain man and prove his doubting family wrong. In St. Louis Wyeth meets the characters who will give him direction over the next several years. They include his eventual: bride, Alene; best friend Ferris; trappers, Jim Bridger and Hugh Glass; boss, Layton and brigade leader and scout, Jedidiah Smith. The company makes its way into Crow and Blackfoot territory where the men make allies as well as enemies with the natives and British trappers they encounter. Their expedition takes them into a wild land of plains and mountains and rivers. Rivers that are on the verge of having being trapped out. So the thinking is, maybe there are enough animals left for one great record setting haul. Wyeth believes he has to be a man of means to truly the man for Alene. The biggest problem seems to be the volatile moods of the inexperienced Layton who can go from being a wrong headed pain-in-the-ass one minute to a hero the next. Will they secure enough pelts to make the expedition a success? Will they get their pelts back to civilization to make their fortune? Great story, great fully drawn characters.
February 25, 2017
I love historical fiction, but have rarely come across books that take place during this time frame--that of the U.S. fur trade, specifically the last days of this era. Having reread Corps of Discovery (about Lewis & Clark) last fall, picking this novel up felt divine.
It is clear to me that the author did significant research to build this novel. It did indeed feel like an extension of what I learned in Corps of Discovery, with many of the same references to tribes, fur companies, and the political maneuvering of colonial empires attempting to claim land, resources, and entire river basins.
I am a genealogy dabbler, and have found that my ancestors arrived and settled just south of St. Louis in the early 1830s. This novel revived my interest in research...the descriptions of St. Louis in this book were fascinating.
While there is an underlying love story anchoring this book, it is not at all a romance novel. Unless you count the romance of travel. The story is well-written, with well-developed and unique characters. I was sad to end the novel.
It is clear to me that the author did significant research to build this novel. It did indeed feel like an extension of what I learned in Corps of Discovery, with many of the same references to tribes, fur companies, and the political maneuvering of colonial empires attempting to claim land, resources, and entire river basins.
I am a genealogy dabbler, and have found that my ancestors arrived and settled just south of St. Louis in the early 1830s. This novel revived my interest in research...the descriptions of St. Louis in this book were fascinating.
While there is an underlying love story anchoring this book, it is not at all a romance novel. Unless you count the romance of travel. The story is well-written, with well-developed and unique characters. I was sad to end the novel.
June 30, 2018
4.5 really, but definitely more 5 than 4 for me. I found myself truly loving this book. I happened upon Mr Burke, specifically this book, because he was alleged to be similar to Joe R Lansdale. While not terribly similar, I loved this book anyway. He made me wish I had a time machine to be able to see the US before it had been raped and pillaged by greed and industry. His focus on the landscape drew me in deeply. At first, I missed the deep character descriptions and fleshing out that Lansdale does so well, but in my opinion, focusing less on deep individual character description was beneficial to creating a true sense of camaraderie for the group of characters, if that makes any sense at all. This book is built on the idea of needing ur fellow mountain man and knowing the land and using all those things to survive and ultimately thrive. And in the midst of that, telling a wonderful story. As I closed the final pages I found myself wishing deeply that Mr Burke had more books like this one.
June 20, 2020
What an absolute gem of a book!
Shannon Burke, an author new to me, has written a novel that is often lyrical , completely absorbing and throughly unforgettable. Set in the America in the third decade of the nineteenth century, a young man named William Wyeth decides to join a brigade of fur trappers leaving St.Louis for the mountain wilderness. He hopes make a fortune in pelts and see the wonders of wild , unexplored country. As his adventures fill the pages, Wyeth character is greatly changed, leaving behind youth and innocence, Finding has reserves of both physical and moral courage.
Some of the notable historic figures of the fabled Mountain Man era are here, Jim Bridger, Jedidiah Smith, Hugh Glass, and whose to say they might not have joined Wyeth on an trip just like this one?
There was a phrase used for this form of novel - picaresque. A grand adventure with heroine characters telling a tale to remember.
Absolutely recommended to every reader.
( Hollywood does not make films like this anymore, but I wish they did.)
Shannon Burke, an author new to me, has written a novel that is often lyrical , completely absorbing and throughly unforgettable. Set in the America in the third decade of the nineteenth century, a young man named William Wyeth decides to join a brigade of fur trappers leaving St.Louis for the mountain wilderness. He hopes make a fortune in pelts and see the wonders of wild , unexplored country. As his adventures fill the pages, Wyeth character is greatly changed, leaving behind youth and innocence, Finding has reserves of both physical and moral courage.
Some of the notable historic figures of the fabled Mountain Man era are here, Jim Bridger, Jedidiah Smith, Hugh Glass, and whose to say they might not have joined Wyeth on an trip just like this one?
There was a phrase used for this form of novel - picaresque. A grand adventure with heroine characters telling a tale to remember.
Absolutely recommended to every reader.
( Hollywood does not make films like this anymore, but I wish they did.)
June 27, 2018
Into the Savage Country was an exciting adventure/psychological story set in the 1800's out west. The story mainly paints portraits of different men's personalities and how they react to each other as they travel the west, work hard and endure hardships. It's like Jane Austen, but for men. I'm not a man, but I loved this story...I have always been obsessed with stories of frontier life and survival. Animal lovers will be squeamish at the buffalo butchering and there's a tad of crude humor thrown in (well, most of the characters are men!) but the story was clean. The characters were very well-rounded and believable. Fans of frontier survival stories and "Master and Commander" by Patrick O' Brien will enjoy this quiet adventure novel.
September 7, 2017
This book is an engrossing tale of the adventures of a band of trappers in the 1820s wilderness and their encounters with the forces of nature, the native tribes and the competing interests of the British and Spanish at that time. The author paints a vivid picture of the life of that period and portrays memorable characters in detail. In my mind's eye I really felt I was there and could picture each and every conversation as it would have occurred. This tale would make a great movie but perhaps the one I unspun in my head as a result of the author's sentences would be superior to any screen portrayal.
September 10, 2017
It took a bit to get into, but once Wyeth met Layton, it got good. You started to get to know the characters then, and they were all awesome. In the end, it was a story of brotherhood, adventurous spirit, and courage. It showed how among friends, even the most vain and miserable person can have a good side. It had some funny parts and some exciting parts. But mostly it showed friendship and integrity. It made me ask a lot of questions about history - the 1820's.
January 29, 2019
The second half is as good as any historical fiction I’ve read. The first half is adequate but in getting to the second the story lurches with a couple false starts and the requisite setups. All has the air of truth and the telling is shrewd, but its early structural deficits keep me from counting it among the very best. Mr. Burke has crafted a satisfying tale that could be just as evocative as a movie.
March 26, 2024
An excellent book. It’s not sarcasm on my part, I just realize that this is a good novel, even if it bored me. The characters weren’t flat at all, but I couldn’t connect with them. Maybe it’s the trapping that was off putting? What do i know, it should have been a fun book, but it didn’t work for me. Not one bit sadly.
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