Customer Reviews

Impatient with Desire

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I've spent the last few months reading books on the Donner Party, going back to a novel out of print for fifty years, so I can say with some confidence, If you read one book on the event, this is the one to read. For a strictly chronological account that puts you on the ground at Donner Lake, I still recommend The Mothers, by Vardis Fisher. But Gabrielle Burton has done something special with a hard topic. Impatient with Desire is the lost journal of Tamsen Donner. To understand, let's back up a bit.

From this distance, one of the tragedies of the Donner story is the loss of Tamsen Donner's journal. Tamsen was the wife of the leader of the group, George Donner. She was an educated woman, a teacher and writer, and she kept a journal from the time they left Independence, Missouri, in April 1845 until some weeks before her death in the Sierras almost a year later. The journal, like most of the property of the doomed emigrants, was lost in the spring thaw after all were dead or saved. It is truly lost, not misplaced, mulched into the forest at Donner Lake. But what an opportunity it was, and it is an imagined classic of the Oregon/California Trail.

Burton uses a deeply informed imagination to "retrieve" it, and her book beautifully recreates what might have been. She imagines the book as not just a diary but a memoir, which gives her the opportunity to tell the entire story in a series of flashbacks woven into an account of the four months the families spent trapped and starving an impassable hundred miles from Sacramento. Burton imagines that Tamsen began the journal at the lake, so the warp of the story is the daily trials of staying alive and keeping children alive. Woven into that cord are Tamsen's recollections of her childhood, her life in Illinois with George, and key events of the journey across the plains.

This is a small, powerful book. Your disbelief will be suspended within a few pages as you listen to Tamsen's lucid, crisp voice. Burton spent most of her adult life preparing to write this book. Her personal memoir of that quest, Searching for Tamsen Donner, captures that quest evocatively. But Impatient with Desire is the payoff, a gripping, touching novel about a key moment of our history, not so much a cautionary tale (as Virginia Reed wrote succinctly to a cousin, "Never take no cutoffs.") as a record of an avalanche of disaster made from pebbles of circumstance.

I read this is one day and then thought about it during the night. Mrs. Donner is so well drawn and the back and forth of the plot, shifting between the current horrible situation and their past lives, all keep you reading until the very end and wishing there were more. Good insight into the minds of the pioneers who adventured West..

This is a masterful novel in the lines of Memoirs of A Geisha and other historically-based gorgeous fiction. Written as letters to her sister within a journal, IMPATIENT WITH DESIRE details the story of Tamsen Donner of the Donner Party (the pioneers who got stuck in the mountains and, as we all recall from history class, turned to cannibalism). Rather than play on the sordid nature of the ultimate event of cannibalism, Burton instead weaves a heart-wrenching tale of adventure, pioneer spirit, faithfulness, love, and parenting. The personality of Donner is brought alive by her remarkable voice -- an inspiration, and I was surprised to hear how "ahead" of her time many of the notions seemed (learned that was not unusual then, actually!). While the choices of turning to cannibalism and also her sending her children ahead with rescue have been unanswered questions, Burton's book humanizes them, gives reason and empathy, and we are THERE in the mountains with Donner. Indeed, we have all been there in lesser forms -- facing difficult, life-changing decisions for ourselves &/or loved ones -- and this book both comforts us and makes us glad at our better situations.

This is an EXCELLENT choice of a book for books clubs. Short, compelling, hard to put down. It's not an easy, breezy book, but few great works of art are. The non-linear structure makes you think, and it pays off in spades.

IWD is a book that will be made into a major movie, I'm sure of it. Read it now, so you get to enjoy it all to yourself before all the hype. It's one of those books you devour and can barely wait to finish, all the while not ever wanting it to end. IWD will echo in your mind long after you've put it down.

A few weeks ago, the author of Impatient with Desire contacted me about reading, reviewing, and creating discussion questions for her new novel. Now I'll admit, when I read that the topic was the Donner Party, I hesitated -- a lot. I know very little about this unfortunate tragedy -- and really had no desire to learn more. However, the author explained the novel was written as a Tamsen Donner's journal and that it is a quick read. So, I decided, "why not?"

While Impatient with Desire does address the events that led to cannibalism and other tragic acts, the heart and spirit of this novel is truly a romance. Through Tamsen's letters and fictional journal entries, we witness a marriage that is beautiful and a pleasure to witness. Tamsen's sacrifices for her children, and especially for her husband, are awe-inspiring and powerful. Gentle moments from their courtship were especially lovely, as evidenced in the following passage:

While watching her soon-to-be-husband painstakingly build a stone wall... "He was in no hurry nor rush -- I would come to understand that he cared more about the building than the completion -- and my heart said, I will cast my lot with this calm, deliberative man who cares about the fit and rightness of things."

On a another level, Desire is an adventure story -- reminding this reader of how courageous and, quite honestly, foolhardy those early settlers were. I did not realize that there were forty-three children -- many under the age of ten -- in the Donner's excursion. This was painful to read about since children have no voice. But I also appreciate that this complex country of ours owes adventurers a debt of gratitude. I've been fortunate to have visited all 50 states and can't imagine our country without the Rocky Mountains or the Badlands or the California coast.

And I should follow Burton's lead in not judging the pioneers. She does an admirable job of not censuring the Donner Party -- allowing readers to form their own opinions and judgements about the events. Tamsen's voice is authentic and strong -- her focus is on the lives of her five children and husband and she is unapologetic, even when wracked with anger and doubt.

I do think this novel would be a good choice for a book club -- the length and speed of the structure results in a fast-paced narrative that only takes a few hours to finish. In addition, the neutral tone allows readers to form their own opinions of the events -- and my discussion questions are available for free from the author's website to help facilitate discussion, too!

Reason for Reading: The Donner Party has always intrigued me, as it does so many others.

The majority of this book focuses on the The Donner Party's journey, told through the eyes of Tamsen Donner in a journal format and a collection of letters to her sister; eventually the letters stop and the journal begins to be written to the sister. The story starts as the pioneers are hunkered down for the winter in the mountains but does not run in a linear format. Tamsen goes back to the days of her and George Donner's meeting, she also tells her biography before she met George and does likewise for him. The story flips from the present winter conditions where they are trapped back to the day they decided to start their journey and the majority of the book is devoted to telling the tale of these pioneer's voyage along the trail, how they got off the usual path and ended up trapped in the mountains for winter.

Being told from Tamsen's point of view is unique; presenting a hardy, robust, adventurous female pioneer who often has more gumption than some of the men. One becomes attached to Tamsen right from the start. The author has done a wonderful job of creating a character that the reader is invested in and actually hopes for even when historically we know the terrible facts. It isn't until the very end that the cannibalism is dealt with and the author doesn't make a big deal out of it either. She shows how it may have come about. She also shows how three different families, in their own huts, may have handled and been affected by the terrible but life-saving, gruesome act. This part of the story is not sensationalized, it is only described in a few short pages, leaving much to the imagination.

This was a page-turner for me. A quick read, with short journal entries and letters it is so easy to just keep turning the pages! An eye-opening story which I think does the Donner Party a service in the eyes of history. With Tamsen Donner's real journal never having been found this is a story we will always wish we could have a glimpse of her eye-witness accounts and this book satisfies, bringing Tamsen Donner alive again as a brave and determined pioneer woman.

***Originally posted at [...] ****

Impatient with Desire is the story of Tamsen Donner, now-legendary

westward pioneer. Tamsen was forty-five when she set out on the

California-Oregon Trail with her husband and five children in the

spring of 1846. Stranded by early snows, Tamsen and the other Donner

Party pioneers spent a harrowing four months in the Sierra Nevadas

without supplies. Tamsen sent her daughters out with relief parties

and stayed behind with her wounded husband; she died sometime in April

1847, leaving only her letters and a journal that was never recovered.

Impatient with Desire is a recreation of that lost journal.

Burton's meticulously researched account mingles her own prose with

phrases from Tamsen's extant letters, with engaging results. From her

shelter in the Sierra Nevadas, Tamsen remembers her girlhood in

Newburyport, her courtship and marriage with her second husband, the

bustle of their preparations to move west, and the hardships of trail

life. Burton captures the voice of this remarkable woman, a

schoolteacher and botanist who traveled alone from Massachusetts to

Illinois and left behind a spirited collection of letters to her

sister Betsey. "In my lifetime people have sometimes wondered at my

conduct, but they have never despised me," Tamsen writes, thinking

back over her travels. "And I shall never be despised."

Tamsen's independence does not go too far, however, in securing her

voice on the trail. One of the most harrowing moments in Impatient

with Desire is a campfire scene where the party's men debate over

whether or not to take the Hastings Cutoff, the ill-advised shortcut

that ultimately left them stranded. Sitting beyond the circle of men

with her journal on her lap, Tamsen records the fateful vote,

convinced that no woman in the party would have agreed to the

decision. Months later, searching for empty spaces in her filled

journal, Tamsen muses, "You can write a whole book in the margins."

Tamsen's marginalized pages remind us of marginalized voices: a

"schoolteacher doing life and death sums," Tamsen is at once a mother,

wife, traveler, scribe, voteless companion.

Despite her exclusion from trail politics, Tamsen still maintains an

equal companionship with her second husband George. The story of their

marriage blends the objects and scenes of memory with the bleak

mountain campsite. These vivid recollections--holidays and children's

birthdays, the decision to move West, the frenzy of preparations, and

the excitement as the party sets out from Independence--bring Tamsen

alive as a historical figure. Reminiscence finally yields to grim

inventory as, in spare, elegant language, Tamsen records taking apart

her family's shelter, her botany collection, even her journal cover,

for sustenance.

Burton's Impatient with Desire is more evenly composed than her memoir

about her cross-country journey in Tamsen's tracks, Searching for

Tamsen Donner. I began the book a bit skeptical about its valorization

of the American frontier, and I kept reading because I wanted more

Tamsen. Donner Party lore has often focused on the cannibalism of the

pioneers (confirmed facts about the Donner Party's struggles are

notoriously scanty). Burton deftly negotiates this tale of outward

struggle to bring us a story of inner survival as well. I read

Impatient with Desire with a kind of grim fascination; Tamsen's

endurance and the powerful elegance of her narration stayed with me

long after I finished the book.

Finely crafted and spellbinding in the calm pain of its heroine,

Impatient with Desire is historical fiction at its best. Readers

interested in women's history, westward expansion, wilderness tales,

and historical fiction will find much to ponder.

Review by Barbara Barrow

Impatient with Desire by Gabrielle is a novel that is based on a lost journal of Tamsen Donner. This is a historical novel that takes place during the spring of 1846 when families were heading west along the Oregon Trail to start their lives over in California. If this is a period in time you were ever interested in, this is a must-read book.

Impatient with Desire is a novel that is based on the Donner party that was trapped in the mountains along the Oregon Trail during a very harsh winter. Gabrielle Burton does a fabulous job bringing the characters together in a journal format as a lost journal that was written by Tamsen Donner.

If you ever played the game "Oregon Trail" this book give new meaning to just what the very real people endured on their path. Burton does a perfect job showing just how hard traveling along this path was for so many. The countless hours of research she did for this book really shows in her writing and will leave you captivated by this memorable tale.

Impatient with Desire by Gabrielle Burton is a must-read novel for fans of historical novels, and especially those who just love a good and haunting read. I highly recommend it.

* Thank you to the publisher of Impatient with Desire, Voice, for providing me with a copy of this book for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

In preparing to write Trapped! The True Story of a Pioneer Girl, my middle grade children's novel about Virginia Reed, a girl with the Donner Party, I read everything I could find about those ill-fated pioneers. I also traveled their route from Springfield, Illinois, where they left established homes to the high Sierras where deep snow forced them to live out that winter of 1846-47 in crude shelters. In my research Tamsen Donner always stood out as a unique individual and for me Gabrielle Burton has captured the very essence of her. I always knew I'd love and admire her and in this story I got the chance to do so. Educated, resilient, strong, adventurous, loving, brave, faithful, if there was a flaw in her, it was minor and hidden deep. Although I know it was a fictional account (of a true happening) the story, told in a journal and in letters that no longer exist, was totally believable to me. The Donners, George and Tamsen, their five daughters, the youngest only three, and Jacob and Elizabeth Donner and their children, one also only three, the hired men and one widowed woman were forced by wagon problems to set up their crude camps about eight miles from the rest of the party. The Donner Party gained infamy when it was learned that some had resorted to cannibalism. This story touches on the subject, but with dignity and grace which was, I thought, in keeping with Tamsen's character. The story ends with George's death, the children gone with one of the relief parties, and Tamsen, who stayed behind to help George through his last hours, striking out for the main camp by the lake. With the exception of Lewis Keseberg, they were all gone when Tamsen arrived, either dead or with the last relief party. One final relief party arrived in mid-April and found only Lewis Keseberg alive. He said Tamsen Donner had died in his cabin shortly after arriving. By all acounts, Keseberg was an odd individual and not well liked. Many believed he killed Tamsen for her flesh, but he always maintained his innocence. Eunice Boeve, author of Trapped!

This is the book I wanted to read when, a couple of years ago, I read The Indifferent Stars Above, only I didn't know it existed. Whereas The Indifferent Stars... was disappointing, Impatient with Desire had everything I wanted to know, everything I had wondered about, with respect to a woman's experience of this journey. Burton does a wonderful job making the almost-mythical Tamsen Donner a realistic, compelling, and finally heartbreaking woman. I've read many accounts of the Donner party through the years, but always felt somewhat detached from the story. But at the end of this book I cried (a lot), and finally felt that I'd got an accurate picture of what these pioneers, and particularly a wife and mother, went through.

All American schoolchildren probably learn about the Donner Party. While not an incredibly significant event in American westward expansion, the story of the families emigrating to California who become trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains and struggle to survive -- some even resorting to cannibalism -- captures our imaginations as much today as it did when it happened. In Impatient with Desire -- an unfortunate title that evokes a lurid romance more than a serious work of historical fiction -- Burton attempts to give a voice to one of the people who perished in that ordeal: Tamsen Donner, wife of the expedition's leader, George Donner.

The story is told in the form of Tamsen's imaginary diary entries and letters to her sister. This choice is a good one because it allows Tamsen to recollect important events from her past, shedding light on her character and breaking up what would otherwise be a bleak narrative of four months of misery and starvation. As Tamsen deteriorates, her journal entries become more disjointed and rambling, helping the reader experience her state of mind. The only problem with this narrative structure is that it is sometimes repetitive, and it can be difficult to keep track of when certain key events happened.

Tamsen is a fascinating character, a woman ahead of her time. She is portrayed as an adventurer at heart who found a soulmate in her second husband George. She had a strong desire to experience the world and often chafed against the societal restrictions placed on women in her time. She also regarded her family's move westward as her chance to participate in history and help shape what her young country would become. She wholeheartedly believed in Manifest Destiny. This goes a long way toward explaining why she would bring her five young children along on such a treacherous journey.

Unfortunately, the other characters outside the immediate Donner family aren't as well-drawn as Tamsen, and it is often difficul to keep them all straight, especially in this non-linear narrative. Still, the story is told in Tamsen's voice, and perhaps even she didn't know her fellow travelers very well. I was most interested in whether she felt she had made a mistake in heading West and putting her children through an unimaginable ordeal. While Tamsen does ruminate on some of the party's mistakes -- taking the disastrous shortcut that led to their being trapped, for one -- she never seems to regret her decisions. Up to the end, she manages to take pride in their adventure and her conviction that they are leading others west in a great mission to form a new land, despite their expedition's failures. I'm not certain I would have felt the same way, or that I would have chosen to stay behind with my husband instead of seeing my children to safety, but a great part of our fascination with this story is wondering why these people made the choices they did and imagining what we would have done in their place. Burton does a good job of bringing Tamsen Donner to life in this novel, and helping us understand her a bit better.