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Title: The Ferry Woman: A Novel of the Mountain Meadows Massacre by Gerald Grimmett ISBN: 0-931659-68-X Publisher: Cold Hill Press Premiere Editions Pub. Date: January, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.83 (12 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Massacre in the Meadows
Comment: Those who aren't members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, better known as Mormons, may not be familiar with the issues of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. I had never heard of this event, myself.
In Ferry Woman, Gerald Grimmett tries to shed light on the role of John Lee, the man who bore the brunt of the blame for the historical massacre.
The author creates a fictional character (the Ferry woman) --one of Lee's wives. It is through her questioning eyes that the reader sees the events unfold. John Lee is hardly a pleasant character, the Mormons don't come off at all well. Even though Lee's role is toned to "participated" rather than "instigated", Lee is not exonerated in the least. We also get a very gritty glimpse of the less-attractive side of life in Utah during the early days of the Morman settlements, and it seems pretty accurate. Life was, as is the familiar quotation, nasty, brutal and sometimes short.
I didn't know about this historical event (I guess my history of that part of the West begins and ends with the Mormons being run out of Nauvoo and the Donner Party.) So I didn't particularly have an opinion about this massacre. As a historical novel, it is well written and interesting. If you are a reader seeking a romantic-style historical novel, this isn't it. If you like realistic historical novels, you might really enjoy this book.
Rating: 5
Summary: In the shadow of the lion
Comment: Gerald Grimmett's new novel, "The Ferry Woman", is based on the historical event in the history of the West and of the Mormon Church, known as the Mountain Meadow Massacre. Events described in the story are told from the perspective of one of the wives of the only man executed by the legal system for his role in an atrocity that was almost certainly ordered by then church leader and founder of Salt Lake City and the Mormon establishment in the arid western interior of the United States.
A primary feature of early Mormon social relations was the aggressive practice of polygamy, which was only abandoned officially by the church as part of a strategy to prevent a military confrontation between Utah, whose leaders were also those of the church, and the US Army contingent then on its way to enforce Mormon compliance with federal laws against plural marriage. The Ferry Woman was one of the wives of John D. Lee, one of those leaders whose directed mission within the church was to settle and develop the Harmony area between Cedar City and St. George Utah. Grimmett is at his best describing the interactions between his characters and their environment.
This reader confesses to some uneasiness in the early pages, at the prospect of accepting a woman's perspective from the narrative pen of a male writer. That is dispelled by the surprising sensitivity and care apparent in the effort. One observes that if this is not true to the way of thinking and self-expression of a young orphaned immigrant serial wife of a much older man, and a formidable, hard-working community leader, devoted husband and father, well it should be. Reading, one is overtaken by a growing sense of the book as literature, especially remembering that the Ferry Woman, although realistically and plausibly detailed in the narrative, is still a fictional construct.
Knowing its subject already, I went into this book skeptical of its potential for a full and courageous exploration of the dark scenario at its heart. After the first 100 pages, I couldn't stop reading it. I closed the book at last with the feeling that the author had succeeded in something extraordinarily important here. Grimmett has skillfully illustrated how even a humanity motivated, in extremis, by patently flaky beliefs about the nature of existence, can thrive. This is a book with legs, and the time was well spent reading it.
A reader with roots in that area of the US that is today within the sphere of influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), with its epicenter in Salt Lake, is likely to agree with the statement of the Poet Laureate of the State of Utah, as quoted on the jacket, that the reaction to the book by modern descendants of the times and personalities described in it, is awaited with eager anticipation. The story is told with a surprisingly precise sense of the supernatural aura that surrounds Mormon history itself, especially as it manifests itself in the 'testimony' borne by modern believers. To a gentile growing up surrounded by it, an ardent love of the church and its teachings is one of the most salient characteristics of expressions made about it by its followers. A less blatant expression, but no less potent one, is a fear of the church and its retribution for non-conformity or apostasy. At the time of events narrated in the novel, when the young church collectively labored not just for legitimacy but for survival, that fear may have been the predominant organizing principle, especially where the rights of women were involved.
Rating: 4
Summary: Interesting Account...
Comment: I thought I liked this book well enough until I read "Red Water" by Judith Freeman. If you enjoyed this book and want to read more or just get another viewpoint of the horrible Mountain Meadows Massacre, read Freeman's book. It's written from the perspective of three of Lee's wives, who, I believe, really lived. Freeman does a much better job of getting inside of the women's minds who were married to Lee than Grimmett does.
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Title: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer ISBN: 0385509510 Publisher: Doubleday Books Pub. Date: 15 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Will Bagley ISBN: 0806134267 Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: The Wives of Short Creek-A Novel of Polygamy and Prophecy by Gerald Grimmett ISBN: 0931659841 Publisher: Limberlost Press Matrix Editions Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Forgotten Kingdom: The Mormon Theocracy in the American West, 1847-1896 by David L. Bigler ISBN: 0874212456 Publisher: Utah State University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Mountain Meadows Massacre by Juanita Brooks ISBN: 0806123184 Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1991 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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