Customer Reviews

Crazy Woman

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The story of the young "crazy" woman has stayed with me years after first reading this book. I have read it more than once and recommended it to friends who have all liked it. This young 19th-century girl feels that she must try harder to be "good" by the paternalistic rules of her world. She never feels that she is good enough. The reader follows her spiritual and intellectual growth--as she interacts with "Anglos," Mexicans, Native Americans, and supernatural beings. She perseveres through violence, physical hardships and dealings with ignorance, bigotry, and cruelty. It is a fascinating journey.

I discovered a 1992 edition of Crazy Woman in a pile of books in my closet. I had apparently bought it but never read it. I can't believe what I have been missing for 10 years! I stayed up until 2 a.m. this morning to read about half of it and can't wait to finish it. It is indeed the journey of self-discovery of Sara Franklin. Never mind that she lived more than 100 years ago. Many women will relate to what Sara must go through to find her authentic voice. In so many ways, we are still expected to stifle our voices and feel guilty about our wants and needs. I logged on to Amazon.com to see what other Kate Horsley novels I might find and was gratified to see that Crazy Woman is still in print, and in a much more attractive edition than my yellowed paperback I might add. Highly recommended.

To me, Kate Horsley's CRAZY WOMAN centers on what happens to people who simply bite off more than they can chew. Or maybe are never taught to chew it in the first place. The novel's central character, Sara grows up with a drunken, abusive father, and a mother who refuses to acknowledge the problem. Unequipped to deal with men, Sara goes offf to college, where she meets a messed up young man who considers sex andsexuality evil. Still he marries Sara and takes her west to do missionary work.

What follows is a gritty portrayl of Sara's mental breakdown in the desert and her return to something that might be considered normal. CRAZY WOMAN also explores the position of a person on the edge of society. To survive Sara hooks up with a band of Apaches that pull her in and push her out of their lives.

I found myself connecting with Sara's struggles. We've all been half in and half out of groups at times. We've all been driven to wits' end about something and more or less recovered.

CRAZY WOMAN is a story of a girl with romantic notions who grows up when she has to face harsh reality. Everybody in the world has had experience with that universal theme at some level.

CRAZY WOMAN is thought provoking. It's not a fun read for a nice fall afternoon. It's something to sink your mental teath into and chew on.

I wasn't sure of what to expect with this book, but was struck by suprise. Once starting it, I simply couldn't put it down! Staying up all night for two nights should say something for this book. Sara fights to understand where she belongs in her world...her internal, imaginary one, the idealistic one her teaching school set her up with, the depressing one her father wished her into, the fantastic journey her mother wished for her, and the one with her new people (you'll just have to see, don't want to give it away). I think this book would be enjoyable to any person to read, man or woman, as the struggles Sara faces, we all face (secretely or not). I found my own self in her world, wondering in which one she would eventually find herself.

This book kept me glued to the couch until I turned the last page. It's more than a bit unusual, but three months after reading it, I still recommend it to my friends.

I enjoyed this author's other work, "Confessions of a Pagan Nun", and so when I saw this book in a friend's collection, I eagerly borrowed it spent an entire afternoon reading it. I was admittedly disappointed with the story, and a little annoyed that the summary description on the back of the book makes promises of a tale it doesn't deliver. Don't for two seconds judge the book by its (back) cover!

I wanted so badly to like Sara, and to watch for her "burning quest for knowledge and spirituality", but it was hard to feel for this woman who is portrayed as a horribly abused victim one moment, and as a babbling lunatic throughout most of the book. The only burning quests I noticed were her desperate will to live, and an almost constant, carnal hunger to copulate. Her spiritual situation was little more than the guilt of the Christian brainwashing she would cling to, versus the concepts of native spirituality. Though her manic and small-minded intensity lends itself well to the makings of a shaman/medicine woman, Sara seems rather two-dimensional. Hysterical or envisioned, and perpetually lusting.

The valor to this book comes into play with the interactions and reactions among the Apache. The flavor of their lives in that region and time, and their myths, are what makes this book intriguing, amusing and entertaining. You can almost skim through Sara's latest round of angst and cut right to their story as something independent. For that reason alone, I can give this book two stars. It really is worth a peek.

But I feel compelled to air my biggest grievance with this book: an incredibly overdone theme of "white man impotent rapist/molester", "native man sexy and powerful" that taints virtually every scene between the main character and anyone of the opposite sex. With the possible exception of her brother, the main character's experience with almost every non-native male has the author beating us over the head with the "abuser" role. Even incidental characters, ones that don't do anything malevolent to the heroine are noted as wishing they could have watched her sexual escapades? We get the point. White guys from this place in history, apparently nearly all of them, horribly abused women. Got it. Check.

The ending is also puzzling and stunted. Contrary to the story description, the finishing chapters of this book make it clear that no, Sara doesn't wholly earn "their respect as a strong, clever, even magical, woman". What little credibility/respect she received (over coincidental incidents) doesn't seem to matter much. Ah well.

Two stars - check it out at a library and decide for yourself. :)

I received this book as a gift from a friend who knows I was born in New Mexico and am attracted to stories such as this.

I started reading it and couldn't put it down. After 5 cups of tea and numerous indents on my couch, I finished it! I loved the whole story of how this woman came to find her true self after years of struggle (mostly due to men!).

She is captivating and vunerable, stong yet fragile. The story brings to life a different time and place than what we are living in. Yet... all woman at one time or another find strength and courage and come into their "own" so with that... we can all relate to Sara.

A great rainy day... cup of tea... read!

Kate Horsley has some really awesome books out there. This is not one of them. While it starts off interesting with Sara being hated by her family (for being female?) and falling in love with a religious instructor, it really goes down hill when the couple makes there way West. If you want a romance book that objectifies American Indians and mocks their culture, here you are, because that's basically the last 1/3 of the book. I was extremely disappointed and if I hadn't read Pagan Nun or Changeling first, I never would have after reading this embarrassment.

This book did not live up to the reviews and descriptions of it. The main character, Sara, for reasons never truly explained, is disliked and picked on by her family. It is suggested that she is disliked because she looks different (she has wild, curly hair?)and because she seeks knowledge. I never thought that she was seeking knowledge or further education. I felt she was very confused, but it was never explained why,and her banishment to the teachers college was a big surprise. It was never used as the stepping-off point it could have been for her growth as a person and the opening of her mind to both her religion and to the outside world. Instead, it further closed her off, both mentally and religiously, even though she was married, traveled across the country and was introduced to different peoples and cultures. Every time she had the opportunity to grow as a person, the author had her fall back on a confused religious belief. Even new people in her life, still for unexplained reasons (except her wild, curly hair) abused her both mentally and physically, and she fell further into confusion and delusion.

The characters of the Indians start out interesting. The author describes each person physically in detail, but never goes beyond that in developing their characters. Sexual tension was suggested, but never explored. It was suggested that Broken Nose was the sexually active and attractive character, and that there was an attraction between him and Sara, but that was also never fully explored. I was completely surprised when, late in the book, there actually was a sexual encounter between them. I felt Sara was more interested in Many Visions. The Indians never fully accepted Sara, as was suggested in the description of the book. Even after she "miraculously" found she could speak their language and had survived on her own, they treated her like less than dirt. She never accepted them or their life, either. She continally fell back on her confused religious faith, and the title of the book aptly describes her mental state. In her confused mind, she wishes for equally her old life with her mother and her life with the Indians. Whe she returns to her own culture with Little Bird, she appears ambivilant towards this life, her life with the Indians, and her previous life. In fact, she appears ambivilant towards everything around her.

The author misses every opportunity to turn Sara into a well-rounded character. None of the characters in the book were fully developed, the story line was rambling and unclear, and the dialogue was stilted.

I just moved to New Mexico from Pennsylvania and also had read that Julia Roberts liked this book in O magazine.

Anyway, I didn't like much of it or get the ending. She killed her husband and this was acceptable!

I do get that the book is about survival and all, but I supsect that maybe the woman was crazy! If her own people thought she was crazy then maybe there was something to it. It was a very unusual book but doubting whether the woman was sane or not doesn't help my opinion of it.

It was a fast read and entertaining though and has also gotten me interested in learning about New Mexico's history and more about the Indians. I must say I feel a lot of compassion for them after reading the book.