Customer Reviews

Searching for Tamsen Donner (American Lives)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Searching for Tamsen Donner, novelist and screenwriter Gabrielle Burton has crafted a stirring and fascinating blend of feminist memoir and pioneer history. In 1977, long captivated by the story of Tamsen Donner, the wife of George Donner, Burton led her husband Roger and their five daughters on a cross-country odyssey to retrace the steps of the ill-fated 1846 Donner party, best known for resorting to cannibalism while trapped by mountain snows. With the careful precision of the scholar and the fiction writer's eye for detail, she recounts the Burton family journey and re-creates as closely as possible the westward trek of the Donners and their associates. Unlike previous Donner party authors, Burton neither judges nor exploits the all too true horrors of the Donner affair. She brings us their story with a deft melding of objectivity and her strong identification with the title figure.

Though separated by 131 years, the parallel journeys of the Donners and the Burtons are quintessentially American. The pioneer family, also with five daughters, set out in covered wagons for what they hoped was a new life in California--in short, the American Dream. What they got, however, was privation, death, and largely undeserved infamy. The 20th Century family, bonded by love and an understanding of the importance of the mother's work, set out in a Chevy station wagon to find the real Tamsen Donner, a strong woman who ultimately sacrificed her own life for family. What the Burtons got was a deeper love for each other and a profound understanding of the American soul.

Gabrielle Burton had hoped to write a novel about a remarkable pioneer woman, but she realized that the family journey revealed as much about her as it did about Tamsen Donner. The result of that realization is an abandoned novel but a wonderful book in the tradition of Travels with Charley. Part political and sociological observation, part history, and part autobiography, Searching for Tamsen Donner is a journey well worth taking.

Searching For Tamsen Donner is a multifaceted exploration of how Tamsen Donner's story captured and inspired Gabrielle Burton, and Burton's subsequent determination to reveal and understand Tamsen as woman and mother, rather than as victim. Maps in hand, Burton and her husband and five daughters followed the Donner Party's trail, ending at the site of the fatal final campsite. Burton's concurrent identities as '70s-era feminist, writer, mother, wife, and woman become her lens to explore Tamsen Donner's life and death, and to muse on Donner's possible motivations. Burton's trip was intended to yield a Tamsen Donner novel. Instead, the insight she gained on that trip became part of her own story, part of her daughters' stories, and part of the family's understanding of who they were as a unit. Readers are the fortunate beneficiaries of the three decades Gabrielle Burton has had to process and reflect upon all of this. Students of history, anyone interested in women's lives/stories/histories, and particularly parents who include their children in their interests (out of necessity or as a means of promoting family identity) will find this book moving and thought-provoking.

In her search for Tamsen Donner, Gabrielle Burton was really, of course, searching for herself. This witty, compelling memoir brings the reader along as the Burton family retraces the path the Donner Party took across the continent in 1846. Burton initially identified with Tamsen Donner because they were both mothers of five daughters, and she'd determined to write a novel based on Tamsen's life and experience. The trip was conceived as a search for material and insight about Tamsen, but turned into much more. As we travel with the family from campground to campground--through the prairie and deserts and finally to the death-dealing Sierras--we come to know the spunky Burton girls and the heroically patient Roger. We're with Burton as she muses about the conflict between her role as wife and mother and her determination to be a writer, about her Catholic upbringing, her struggle to stop smoking, her anxiety over the dreadful cost that making one choice over another may exact. We see contemporary America through her very observant eye, which is sometimes critical but always thoughtful and respectful. And then there's the story of the Donner Party's slow movement toward their doom, skillfully woven into the narrative, which Burton manages to make vivid and terrifying all over again, in spite of the many times it has been told. This is a terrific book and deserves a wide audience.

I have long been fascinated by the story of the Donner party. Now I had a chance to get to know the female heroine, Tamsen Donner. And what better way to learn about her than from author/researcher/enthusiast, Gabrielle Burton?! Both the Donner and Burton journies came to life for me with Burton's vivid descriptions. I appreciated Burton's insight regarding women's liberation and loved the way she wove the past with the "present" (1970s with some reference to 2009 as well). I also related to her juggling career and family. A great book on many levels. Entertaining and educational in so many ways.

Such a creative way to present history in a personal, entertaining way. Clearly, good reading for writers and American history buffs -- a compelling narrative about being a writer, as well as a strong historical account of the Donner Party and the latest information/research on them.

But this is ALSO a book to give hope to parents who still seek adventure and passion. It's not impossible, and here's a parent who showed you can bring your kids along.

Includes true letters from Tamsen Donner, which make for a fascinating compliment to the history.

Give a good idea of the American landscape too, and how our culture is rapidly changing due to "development."

Enjoyed it overall. It was a pleasant read although I was expecting more information about the Donner party & Tamsen Donner, it did give me some insight into the authors journey, and that was interesting as well. So even though it was not exactly what I was expecting I did enjoy the book. I would proabaly go 31/2 stars if I could, but I liked it better than 3, so didn't was to go down since overall I wasn't sorry I bought it.

I loved this book. It's a page turner and exceptionally written. Burton takes the reader into two historic journeys, Tamsen Donner's tale and her own personal story. The book gives us clear pictures of two women forging frontiers in two different eras. The mid-1970's story of a family traversing the country is as compelling as the Donner party carrying the weight of their own dreams in covered wagons.

I've long been fascinated by the Donner Party. Having been to many of the sites that the author mentions, it was so often like finding a common friend. She reveres what I revere. The author peppers this magnificent book with so many wonderful insights and quotes that resonated with me. This book made my mature, road-weary heart beat anew!

The book was okay, but nothing close to "Impatient With Desire" Gabrielle's odd combination of insecurity and self-righteous (but not really well thought out) feminism is just too invasive and distracting. Several parts were a too snarky for me. It's also kind of comical that she kept going to the wrong historical locations (but hey, this was back in the 70s so she didn't have the precision we have today). And, while we got to know the kids/girls, her husband was always kept amorphous - we know he's smart and can navigate, but we don't know him. All that said, the book is decent and you have to admire her dedication to the subject.

My husband randomly picked this book up for me at the Library. I didn't get right into it but soon I was hooked and read half the book in one sitting. I found that telling her journey added to the book since we can only guess what Tamsen was struggling with. I thought the author's story connected her to Tamsen and me, a mother myself, to the both of them.