Customer Reviews

Running West

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"In the Tradition of Dances With Wolves" claims the cover - well, not exactly. In some ways this novel is better, since it acknowledges that there were/are good and bad whites along with good and bad Indians. However, it does bear the similarity of attempting to tell a tale, based on real people amd events in early 18th century Canada, from both the white and Indian perspectives (every other chapter is narrated by the two main characters, Scottish trader William Stewart and Dene Indian girl Thanadelthur). This adventure and romance has a surprisingly poignant ending and provides entertaining illumination on not only the cultures of both Indians and the English fur traders in the Hudson Bay area but also on a period of Canadian history virtually unknown to Americans.

Story concerns an indentured servant who becomes valuable for his map writing and journaling skills, not to mention his ability to absorb Cree and Dene dialects. He meets Thana, a Dene slave girl on the run from a cruel master. Their love for one another benefits the York Trading Company. The main action concerns William's and Thana's long walk west to Dene territory, land that is hoped will yield much gold and furs to the trading post. The ending is made confusing by Houston's alternating the point of view between Thana and William and made even more confusing by rendering Thana's hallucinations during her terminal illness as the real deal.

"Running West" was one of the best books I have everread. The author, James Houston, has a very excellent style ofwriting. It was very creative the way he wrote his chapters. The book is about two different people and their stories are in every other chapter. The story was about a man named William banned from his Scottish homeland that was sent out of Europe to America and a Canaidan Indian girl named Thana whose family and friends were killed, so she is left by herself out in the uncharted wilderness. The two characters meet and fall in love and are running west in search of gold.