The Personal History of Rachel DuPree: A Novel [Hardcover]

Ann Weisgarber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 12, 2010

An award-winning novel with incredible heart, about life on the prairie as it's rarely been seen

When Rachel, hired help in a Chicago boardinghouse, falls in love with Isaac, the boardinghouse owner's son, he makes her a bargain: he'll marry her, but only if she gives up her 160 acres from the Homestead Act so he can double his share. She agrees, and together they stake their claim in the forebodingly beautiful South Dakota Badlands.

Fourteen years later, in the summer of 1917, the cattle are bellowing with thirst. It hasn't rained in months, and supplies have dwindled. Pregnant, and struggling to feed her family, Rachel is isolated by more than just geography. She is determined to give her surviving children the life they deserve, but she knows that her husband, a fiercely proud former Buffalo Soldier, will never leave his ranch: black families are rare in the West, and land means a measure of equality with the white man. Somehow Rachel must find the strength to do what is right-for herself, and for her children.

Reminiscent of The Color Purple as well as the frontier novels of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Willa Cather, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree opens a window on the little-known history of African American homesteaders and gives voice to an extraordinary heroine who embodies the spirit that built America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Weisgarber's atmospheric if unexceptional debut of pioneering hardships follows a staunch South Dakota farmwife as she struggles with misgivings about her ambitious husband. The story begins as Rachel DuPree, wife of one of the only African-American ranchers in the Badlands in 1917, watches her husband, Isaac, lower their six-year-old daughter, Liz, down a well to fetch water in the midst of a terrible drought. Though she concedes it must be done, Rachel--heavily pregnant with her eighth child--is distraught, and her worries set off a chain reaction of second-guessing her loyalty to Isaac, whose schemes include buying out the neighboring ranch and leaving the family to find work during the winter. As a series of calamities befall the family, Rachel must decide whether to follow the only man she has ever loved or strike a new path of her own. Rachel's homely voice isn't the most inviting, and while the racial tensions between whites, blacks, and Native Americans is pretty surface-level, Weisgarber's depiction of survival in the harsh Badlands has its moments.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Enamored of Isaac DuPree (the son of her employer) and desperate for a life beyond that of boardinghouse cook in Chicago’s slaughterhouse district, Rachel accepts a deal proffered by Isaac: join him in settling 160 acres of land offered by the Homestead Act in the wilds of South Dakota. She heads off to the aptly named Badlands in a bargained marriage of at least one year. Fourteen years later, she looks back over her life, the dreams and longing of a young woman versus the harsh reality of a wife and mother living in an unforgiving territory. After months of drought, the land, the animals, and her children are parched and on the brink. She herself is on the brink, pregnant again and coping with Isaac’s obsession with the land, the cruel demands on their five young children, and the isolation of being one of the few black families in the territory. A shimmering novel of the sacrifice, hardship, and determination of a black family in the early-twentieth-century settlement of the West. --Vanessa Bush

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (August 12, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670022012
• ISBN-13: 978-0670022014
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #298,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ann Weisgarber lives in Sugar Land, Texas, and is a graduate of Wright State University and the University of Houston. While on a camping vacation at the Badlands National Park in South Dakota, Ann visited a sod dugout. The floors were dirt, and in the kitchen a path had been worn around the cookstove. Someone, Ann realized, had worked at the cookstove day after day. On that same vacation, she stopped at a small museum and saw a photograph of an unnamed woman sitting in front of her dugout. The woman was alone, and she was an African-American. Inspired by this woman and by the dirt path around the cookstove, Ann began to write The Personal History of Rachel DuPree.

Granted a writing residency by the National Park Service, Ann spent four weeks living in a ranger's cabin at the Badlands National Park. She visited Pine Ridge Reservation, Ft. Robinson in Nebraska, the Homestake Mine in Lead, and the towns of Interior and Scenic, all locations that make appearances in the story. The Personal History of Rachel DuPree was nominated for both the Orange Prize and the Orange Award for New Writers in England. In the U.S. it won the Steven Turner Award for Best Work of First Fiction and the Langum Prize for American Historical Fiction.

Visit Ann's website at www.annweisgarber.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big Hearted, November 16, 2009

By 

Douglas R. Worgul - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Personal History of Rachel DuPree (Hardcover)

The best novels put you not just in a place and time other than your own, they put your soul inside the soul and body of another. You live this person's pain, sorrow, fear, confusion, satisfaction, enlightenment, and joys with them. And when you're done, you're changed. The story you have finished is now, in part, your story. It's become a part of your DNA.

This is Ann Weisgarber's singular achievement in The Personal History of Rachel DuPree. You come away from her vivid, moving, tough, and tender novel exhausted by the trials of a young African-American wife and mother scraping out a living in the Badlands of South Dakota in the early years of the Twentieth Century. You also come away stronger, wiser, and with a bigger heart.

Weisgarber has a remarkable eye for detail. The grit, dust, relentless heat, and hard-heartedness that Rachel and her family endure are rendered with such exquisite granularity, that after each chapter you feel it necessary to shake the dirt off your clothes.

Novels about tough women who triumph over seemingly insurmountable challenges are a dime a dozen. This is not one of those novels. There is nothing formulaic, forced, or forgettable about this story. It is priceless.

The Personal History of Rachel DuPree was nominated for Britain's prestigious Orange Prize, alongside works by Toni Morrison (Nobel Prize) and Marilynne Robinson (Pulitzer Prize). When you read the book, you'll know why.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting, different., January 7, 2010

By 

L. Stafford - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Personal History of Rachel Dupree (Paperback)

I've recommended this book to everyone I know, and everyone loves it. Absolutely loves it. My book club, my sisters, my husband. Everyone is wondering when the sequel will come it. Unfortunately, I don't think a sequel is planned but it is still a great read and interesting to consider what might come next. It starts off in a very tense situation and continues to grab the readers attention. The story is that a young black mand and woman in Chicago in the early part of the 20th century want to ranch out west. Well, he wants to ranch out west and she wants to get out of Chicago and experience adventure with this life and with this intense man. It is a hard, lonely life, and the husband is willing to sacrifice almost anything to acquire more land and more cattle. I liked being taken to that time and place. It felt like I was there. It is a short book and the pages turn very quickly. Cancel your plans for the evening if you start reading this book today.

I haven't written many (or any?) book reviews before.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars African-American Historical Fiction, June 21, 2010

By 

Ursula K. Raphael "AstraDaemon, The Zombiephiles" (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Personal History of Rachel DuPree: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

I selected this book because I lived in South Dakota for a long time, and I still have family there, so I was very familiar with the setting. I was surprised that someone wrote a story involving the Badlands from the POV of an African-American woman named Rachel living on a struggling ranch.

When the story began with Rachel's daughter, Liz, being lowered into a dried up well, I knew then I wouldn't be happy unless I read the entire book right away. There was never a point where I felt I could put the book down. Each chapter introduced another level of Rachel, as well as her life with her husband, Isaac.

I was expecting her to have lost some children, just because of the time period, but the descriptions of the family's thirst and hunger was extremely upsetting. Even the farm animals suffering was described in detail...it made me feel like I was experiencing the drought myself. After reading about one hardship after another, I wondered why she would have stayed with Isaac for so long, when the original agreement was not a traditional marriage proposal.

I was suspicious of the pregnant Indian woman with the mixed-race little boy, but Rachel's reaction was unpredictable. She was a very complex character, and Isaac seemed more like a shadow of a person compared to Rachel. It was disappointing to see them being just as racist with the Native Americans, as the white people were to them.

I was very pleased with the way Rachel handled herself in the end, but I was disappointed that the story didn't continue onto the train.

This novel was written as if Rachel herself was writing it; I thought the flashbacks made the story stronger too.

Ironically, I wouldn't compare this story to The Color Purple, but maybe Their Eyes Were Watching God...the concept of a family struggling with a new environment reminded me of The Calligrapher's Daughter.

I think Ann Weisgarber did an excellent job of telling Rachel's story.