Review: One Thousand White Women

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus | 3.5/5 Star Rating 

Review:

This was another book club read, and it happened to be my mother’s choice for the month. It was also recommended by my grandmother, so naturally I was looking forward to reading this one.

First off, for those of you that have never heard of this book, allow me to explain. The book is considered Historical Fiction, and it takes place in the late 1800’s during Grant’s presidency. Grant held a “meeting” with a great Cheyenne Chief, and in exchange for peace (and 1,000 wild horses), the Chief requested 1,000 white women to be provided in order to make them Cheyenne wives. Of course, Grant did not comply. But this book explores the possibility of what would have happened if he had. In the book, the women participating in this “program” are volunteers, and they bravely set out to assimilate into the Cheyenne tribe and culture.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read. I loved the variation in characterization. Though each character seemed extreme in the representation of their character traits, it helped to differentiate between all of the women. This is a story filled with quite a number of characters, including several main characters. So the polarizing traits actually worked well to help each character stand out in their own way.

I also loved the history involved. Though Native American history is common knowledge in a general sense, it was fascinating getting to know a renown tribe through their cultural differences; i.e. religion, gender roles, tribe hierarchy, etc.

And of course, I loved the love. I wouldn’t call this a love story. And it’s certainly not a romance. But it has just enough passion to keep a romance lover like myself preoccupied.

I think the thing I most disliked about the novel was the fact that the storyline read slow. The perspective was written in first person, past-tense and followed a journalling format.

In most cases, I believe this writing platform works well to bring the reader closer to the narrator and overall story. But in the case of One Thousand White Women, I believe it had the opposite effect. It caused the storyline to lose a bit of its urgency. As the reader, you’re reading what happened to the narrator, May, after the fact. The sense of suspense is therefore lacking. The journal entries differ from that of normal past-tense prose because the reader now knows that the character is already experiencing something else, and is only recounting events that took place hours, days, weeks – even months prior.
The other complaint I have has to do with the amount of feeling and motivation behind the narrator’s (and therefore the writer’s) words. A lot of times, the narrator’s longing, despair and passion would fall flat. Her words are over-dramatized, even melodramatic, and I think the writer would have done well to visualize the character’s emotions more. I would have preferred, as the reader, to be more grounded in her feeling – perhaps we could have been shown a personality change or a behavioral/physical change in the character in response to specific events. Many times, it seemed as though the feelings were more or less brushed under the rug.

All-in-all, I’m happy to have read One Thousand White Women. It did well to help me out of a reading funk. Prior to reading it, I was stuck in a book hangover, and this novel thankfully helped me recover.

I’d recommend this novel for all Historical Fiction lovers, and for those that have a fascination with the Native American culture.

Happy reading.