A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK - From one of our most compelling and sensual
writers comes a searing, immersive novel about a seminal and shameful
moment in America's conquest of the West. Drawing partly from a true
story, it brings to life a devastating Native American revolt and the
woman caught in the middle of the conflict.
In the summer of 1855, Sarah Brinton abandons her husband and child to
make the long and difficult journey from Rhode Island to Minnesota
Territory, where she plans to reunite with a childhood friend. When she
arrives at a small frontier post on the edge of the prairie without
family or friends and with no prospect of work or money, she quickly
remarries and has two children. Anticipating unease and hardship at the
Indian Agency, where her husband Dr. John Brinton is the new resident
physician, Sarah instead finds acceptance and kinship among the Sioux
women at a nearby reservation.
The Sioux tribes, however, are wary of the white settlers and resent the
rampant theft of their land. Promised payments by the federal government
are never made, and starvation and disease soon begin to decimate their
community. Tragically and inevitably, this leads to the Sioux Uprising
of 1862. During the conflict, Sarah and her children are abducted by the
Sioux, who protect her, but because she sympathizes with her captors,
Sarah becomes an outcast to the white settlers. In the end, she is lost
to both worlds.
Intimate and raw, The Lost Wife is a brilliantly subversive tale of
the conquest of the American West.
