Customer Reviews

Tough Trip Through Paradise

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was hooked on this autobiography from the moment I opened it to see if I might like it. The first page has the following: "Montana, 1878 - Andrew Garcia left the army at 23 and went out with a party of traders to make a living among the indians in the Montana wilderness. Soon he acquired the name "Squaw Man" and an indian wife - the first of three. Indians, frontiersmen, traders, trappers and the "Boys in Blue' - all were part of his "paradise" between two worlds and two eras of History in the old West. This is his story, discovered in a dynamite box in the cabin where he died at the age of 88."

And after the first paragraph of the introduction I was hooked: "In 1948 I found the manuscript from which this book was written. It was stored in dynamite boxes, packed solid in the heavy waxed paper that powder comes in - several thousand pages of legal-sized paper, both hand writtena and typed. Also in the collection were newspaper clippings showing Andrew Garcia at meetings of the Society of Montana Pioneers through the 1930's........"

Magnificently edited. A wonderful adventure story, wonderfully written and very readable, about one man's unusual life, which, in retrospect, in many ways was very priveliged... a way of living which could never be duplicated..

An incredibly moving glipse of an ordinary man's effort to live -- not just survive -- in the rugged wilds of the Montana West. As life unfolds, the biographic tale reveals a deeper, more spiritual quest for quintessential American values: truth, fairness, and peace -- in life and in love, among many different people from many diverse cultures. An odessey encompassing a tableau of Native American peoples, and an equally complex canvass of European settlers, French trappers, and a stalwart Texas-bred Mexican-American Westerner as hero. Literally too honest and good a story to be mere fiction. I read a dog-earred, creased, many times read borrowed paperback copy. I'd really like to own my own hardback, and a bunch of paperbacks to give as gifts to many others.

Reading this book had a deep effect on my life. When it was first given to me I only had a vague idea about Montana. It was somewhere up there. I started reading it and it shocked me. The writing was not quite proper grammatically correct english you see, it irritated me so much that I stopped and put it away. But I had been hooked and I went back to it. This second time around I just could'nt put it down and wish it did'nt end. The dream of Montana became stuck in me.

In 1980 I had the good fortune to find my way to Bozeman and by an unimaginable stroke of luck I even met Ben Stein the editor of what had become my favorite book. Tough Trip Through Paradise is very much also the work of Ben Stein. Ben had gone through the original found writings to form the book. Andrew Garcia and Ben Stein are now gone. But the remains of the story are still here with us. The site of Fort Ellis just east of Bozeman has been excavated and located. The building where Walter Cooper outfitted Garcia is still here on Main Street.The Musselshell still flows.If you take a trip to the Big Hole Battlefield monument you'll see the markings of the battle. A photo of In-Who-Lise hangs in the museum but there's no connection made with the book.

Somehow Andrew Garcia and Ben Stein were able to conserve the essence of the 1870's and take us to that time. Not by telling us how it was but by making us feel it. This was their genius. It just seeps into you. Sit, read and just let yourself experience those times. The west as it was, the indians, and others who played their part will be changed forever in your mind because you will have been there.

I have read this book several times and it is a favorite title for me to give as a gift. Simply told, it is a very honest story about real life. A case where truth is far better than fiction.

This is a fantastic book. It was interesting from beginning to end. It tells in realistic detail the life of Andrew Garcia in the wilderness, his life with Indians, and his life with his beloved In-who-lise. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about life in the wild, about life with Indians, and about the other side of the story of the tragedy of the American Indian. The episodes about a bear invading his camp and about the murder of John Hays were remarkable. This is one book I was sorry to see end.

Until this book popped up as an Amazon recommendation, I hadn't realized how much I missed it, how sorry I am for giving away both my copies. Whole scenes from this book still seem fresh after 35+ years even though most of the text has faded into fog. I doubt you'll find a more comprehensive, close-up look at life in an encampment of the (remaining) plains Indians of 1978-79. Their tribal politics, their marital squabbles, their memories of lost battles, their tribal raids and barter habits. I was living in Western Montana then and could visit the places described.

Most vividly I recall his terrifyingly hilarious midnight adventure in a tipi high in the Pintlar Range. The main players being the author, his squaw, their dogs and muzzle-loaders, and a large grizzly bear. The tale is worthy of the best of Mark Twain.

This isn't your ordinary Mountain Man Tale distilled posthumously from public record and old letters by a history Ph.D. This is (impure) autobiography pieced together from a wooden boxful of ancient photos and papers scribbled by the man who lived that astonishing life. His memories and opinions are filtered by Ben Steins editing, but they're either unmistakably his own or the most imaginative and readable forgery ever ever published.

Today I'm buying it again--for the third time. A book this good shouldn't be gathering dust in the back shelves of a used bookstore.

an excellent book for history and western america buffs, as well as pure entertainment. garcia's linguistic ability is not perfect, so don't take the translations of Indian names/words as truth, but an excellent, entertaining read. I couldn't put it down and wished it was longer when I was finished.

This book was writen by my great grandfather and i find it to be very interesting and realistic. He tell how it was just a few years be for the extinction of the Plains Indians. His nine years living among them was an adventure witch impelled him to dress the part and gain there trust. Hunting, trapping and traiding while no other white man could.

Gives a true to life description of life at the end of the mountain man era, with eye witness accounts of what life was like for the American Indians during this time period. It totally refutes the Hollywood images of Mountain Men, Indians, and Old West robbers and highwaymen. It is also a love story set in a rough and brutal era of American history. I wish I would have found it 40 years ago.

What a great view of the lives of the people that came before us this book offers.
With the passing years we tend to forget the hardships that were endured in order to give us the life that we enjoy today.
This book gives us a rare look into a life not many of us would be willing to live today.
Wayne W. Lamson