Helpful Score: 1
Gloss hits a lot of notes in this bordering-on-fantasy tale set in the deep woods of Washington State in the early 1900s. Whether it's a symphony or cacophony may depend largely on the reader's perception.
When we first meet Charlotte Bridger Drummond, through the pages of her posthumously-discovered diary, she's a single mom trying to corral five rambunctious sons, eking out a living as a writer of penny-dreadful novels â mostly formulaic romances full of spunky heroines, hidden civilizations, daring adventures, and nick-of-time rescues. She knows it's largely tripe, but also knows that women writers of her era have a difficult time being taken seriously. When her housekeeper's granddaughter goes missing from a logging camp, Charlotte is determined to join the search â partly because her housekeeper is an important part of her life, but partly (even though she never admits this to herself, even in the most secret pages of her diary) it's an opportunity to show herself as the physical equal of the men in the party and perhaps to live the spunky heroine role and find adventure/inspiration for yet another novel.
The diary remnants are neither complete nor chronological, and are intermingled with quotations, news clippings of the day, descriptions of the logging towns and turn-of-the-century logging practices, excerpts from Drummond's published works, fragments of ideas for future pieces, musings on the relationships between men and women, personal history, anecdotes about mystical forest creatures reported by Indians and early settlers for decades, keen observations of the landscape, character sketches, folk tales, observations on racism, and a dark, simmering undercurrent of sensuality which she admits may be coming from her own self-enforced celibacy.
The brutal reality of bushwhacking through virgin Pacific Northwest forest in the search challenges Drummond's perceptions of her own capabilities â perhaps not a bad thing â but a series of mishaps (the least skillfully handled of any of the book's events) leaves her separated from the search party without even the most rudimentary tools or equipment for survival, and here's where the story takes a turn into fantasy.
Or does it?
Drummond's sojourn in the wilderness, as reported in the journal she keeps throughout the event, becomes less and less tethered to the world we know. Is it a true story? A fever dream? The fantasy of a mind and body stressed beyond endurance? A series of scenes for a possible future novel? Readers will have to make their own decisions about this, just as they will have to imagine Drummond's subsequent life.
Gloss has written both science fiction and historical westerns in the past, and bends the genres here into something that is not quite either one, flavored with her unique understanding of the region and a sturdy feminist viewpoint. The journey is not always comfortable, but true exploration seldom is.
When we first meet Charlotte Bridger Drummond, through the pages of her posthumously-discovered diary, she's a single mom trying to corral five rambunctious sons, eking out a living as a writer of penny-dreadful novels â mostly formulaic romances full of spunky heroines, hidden civilizations, daring adventures, and nick-of-time rescues. She knows it's largely tripe, but also knows that women writers of her era have a difficult time being taken seriously. When her housekeeper's granddaughter goes missing from a logging camp, Charlotte is determined to join the search â partly because her housekeeper is an important part of her life, but partly (even though she never admits this to herself, even in the most secret pages of her diary) it's an opportunity to show herself as the physical equal of the men in the party and perhaps to live the spunky heroine role and find adventure/inspiration for yet another novel.
The diary remnants are neither complete nor chronological, and are intermingled with quotations, news clippings of the day, descriptions of the logging towns and turn-of-the-century logging practices, excerpts from Drummond's published works, fragments of ideas for future pieces, musings on the relationships between men and women, personal history, anecdotes about mystical forest creatures reported by Indians and early settlers for decades, keen observations of the landscape, character sketches, folk tales, observations on racism, and a dark, simmering undercurrent of sensuality which she admits may be coming from her own self-enforced celibacy.
The brutal reality of bushwhacking through virgin Pacific Northwest forest in the search challenges Drummond's perceptions of her own capabilities â perhaps not a bad thing â but a series of mishaps (the least skillfully handled of any of the book's events) leaves her separated from the search party without even the most rudimentary tools or equipment for survival, and here's where the story takes a turn into fantasy.
Or does it?
Drummond's sojourn in the wilderness, as reported in the journal she keeps throughout the event, becomes less and less tethered to the world we know. Is it a true story? A fever dream? The fantasy of a mind and body stressed beyond endurance? A series of scenes for a possible future novel? Readers will have to make their own decisions about this, just as they will have to imagine Drummond's subsequent life.
Gloss has written both science fiction and historical westerns in the past, and bends the genres here into something that is not quite either one, flavored with her unique understanding of the region and a sturdy feminist viewpoint. The journey is not always comfortable, but true exploration seldom is.
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