Customer Reviews

The True Account: A Novel of the Lewis and Clark and Kinneson Expeditions (Lewis & Clark Expedition)

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Mark Twain knew it: Truth is stranger than fiction -- but lies are far more interesting than truth.

And Howard Frank Mosher, as splendid a liar as Twain himself, might have delivered the most interesting book you'll read during the upcoming, three-year bicentennial of Lewis and Clark's 1804-06 expedition in search of the Northwest Passage.

But be forewarned: If you're among those humorless academics who believe history should not be trifled with by liars, you must certainly skip "The True Account: A Novel of the Lewis & Clark & Kinneson Expeditions," perhaps the funniest historical novel about the West since "Little Big Man."

Thanks to a recently discovered manuscript hidden for 200 years, we now know that Lewis and Clark were the first runners-up in the race to the Pacific Ocean. The adventurer who beat them (just barely)? Private True Teague Kinneson, a Vermont schoolmaster, veteran of the Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys, playwright, inventor, narco-agronomist and explorer.

Wearing a belled nightcap to cover the copper plate screwed into his skull (a prosthetic made necessary by a life-altering blow sustained while drinking rum with Ethan Allen), a suit of chain-mail, galoshes and an Elizabethan codpiece, Private Kinneson begins his journey with his artistic nephew, Ticonderoga, into terra incognita.

Why? He wishes to teach Indian tribes of the West how to cultivate hemp, which he describes as "That panacea for all the spiritual ills of mankind." Oh, and to beat Lewis and Clark.

Along their path to the Pacific, True and Ti encounter highwaymen, hostile and not-so-hostile Indians, horny women, cannibals, a circus of freaks, and some of the great real-life people of the day, such as Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Boone (and his frisky daughter Flame), and Sacagawea.

And in the midst of his frolic, our American Quixote invents rodeo, baseball and a marvelous hot-air balloon; discovers Yellowstone; and outwits the Devil Himself.

Private True Teague Kinneson is every mythic traveler who ever believed the shortest distance between two points was a dream, from Odysseus to Gulliver to his beloved Quixote. And like the Cervantes masterpiece, this boisterously funny novel is more picaresque than poignant, although like any good farce, it occasionally plucks the readers heart-strings as well as his funny-bone.

Great parodies resonate at the precise moment we are taking ourselves to seriously (do we really need three exhaustive years to celebrate Lewis and Clark?) Mosher's voice is pitch-perfect, satirical without being too sardonic. And Private True Teague Kinneson just might find his rightful place in American letters somewhere between Gus McCrae and Forrest Gump.

OK, it's worth noting that the national epic of Lewis and Clark's expedition surveyed the continent's resources, made contact with many Indian tribes living there, found a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, explained the flora and fauna of the region, created one of the first true Native American heroines, helped build a transcontinental nation, and ... blah blah blah. It was serious business for Captains Lewis and Clark. You can look it up, in all its breathless, geo-political, bio-diverse, Ambrose-flakking, socio-aggrandizing, -- and mind-numbing -- detail.

Who cares?

Private True Teague Kinneson reminds us that sometimes adventures, like books, are just for fun.

"As he was drinking rum flip with Ethan...my uncle lost his footing and struck his head so sharp a blow on the gate of the fort that he never, I am grieved to report, quite regained his correct wits." --- Ticonderoga Kinneson

Ticonderoga Kinneson's explanation paints the personality picture of his uncle, Private True Kinneson. True's exploits in THE TRUE ACCOUNT are acts that reflect his ribald imagination. The young Ti, an artist in his own right, assumes the gargantuan task of keeping track of True's heroic enterprises. THE TRUE ACCOUNT celebrates the Lewis and Clark expedition bicentennial as a fictional account of what might have been if there was a race to the Pacific between two exploring groups.

In 1804, True and Ti set out from their home in Vermont on an expedition to the Pacific, ahead of Lewis and Clark. True meets with President Jefferson and receives approval to begin the trip, but without official funds. His hilarious attempt to raise money is through proceeds from his original pay. Not well received, the drama gets him run out of town where he stages it. Undaunted, he moves from Monticello to the Natchez Trace, where the race begins.

His misadventures continue when he meets Flame Danielle Boone, Daniel's daughter, an army of Spaniards and Anasazis, the Nez Perce, Shoshone and Blackfoot tribes. Dressed as a Don Quixote figure, Private True rides a broken-down mule and brandishes an arquebus as his weapon. Chain mail, a belled night stocking and galoshes complete his usual attire. Fifteen-year-old Ti spends much of his time tracking the errant uncle. A conversation with Meriwether Lewis reveals that the high-spirited True is a religious devotee of the use of hemp plant. Lewis is astonished when True confesses to sharing his smoke with a child of five years.

The action becomes more bizarre with the entrance of a mysterious Blackfoot girl named Yellow Sage Flower Who Tells Wise Stories. At this point, the Lewis and Clark group travels alongside True. Ti's painting of the journey is the trip's chronicle, if one can believe that he is given free license to draw the principals involved. At best, the portrait of his uncle shows the "true" character.

The title, THE TRUE ACCOUNT, is an appropriate use of the lead character's persona. Readers of the novel, with a thirst for accurate history, will be disappointed. However, a map at the beginning sketches the path of True's journey and the paths that both follow and deviate from the Lewis and Clark route. Page-turning to the maps kept my curiosity alive to determine the author's willingness to adhere to history.

Howard Frank Mosher depicts a hilarious, ribald free-spirited man who makes his own history. While I found the story too bizarre to believe, it was inventive, clever, hilarious and good fun. Apologies to historians devoted to the preservation of real truth.

--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad

I loved this book. I loved this story. I loved the Sunday afternoon spent with a truly original, imaginative, and entertaining story. Mosher has always written funny, intriguing stories of Northern Vermont, The Kingdom, and the characters doing their daily living. All of his books are treasures of backwoods, small, American lives. True Teague Kinneson lives on as the leader of the expedition that beat Lewis & Clark, and takes his place as one of the most unique and memorable literary characters ever. Perhaps the man is just a bit touched. But that's ok, because I can't find much wrong with his life philosophy, or the care and respect he has for the land, the people he meets, and most of all, his family. (I recommend all of Mosher's earlier works...especially "A Stranger in The Kingdom" and "Northern Borders")

This crazy romp across the country in a race to beat Lewis and Clark was amusing. A brain-damaged Revolutionary war hero and his nephew, an artist, set out to the Pacific. I found the book quixotic and off-beat, but it did not hold my interest.
Reviewed by Holly Weiss, author of Crestmont

A lot of people are praising this book, so I'm in the minority here. Several people in my book club thought it was "charming," and we picked it to read because we thought we all needed a laugh after some pretty difficult books (and grim news in the newspaper every day.) On a certain level it's sweet or "fun" - the way a tall tale about Pecos Bill is fun. But this is a tall tale on top of a tall tale on top of another tall tale, on and on and on - and even Pecos Bill would get old after 300 pages. The hero of the novel - True Teague Kinneson - is NOT like Don Quixote, other than the fact he's not always sure of what he's really doing, and he wears strange clothes. He doesn't "dream the impossible dream" - in fact, the book is simply one success story after another. True solves every problem, there's no sense of melancholy or impending doom to deepen his character. I got tired of it after the first 60 pages - it keeps following the formula: True has a problem and then True solves the problem, every few pages for 300 pages. And the problems are almost always the same problem: Indians are going to kill them or kill the Lewis & Clark people, so how will True get them out of it this time using only a match and five buckets of mud? Or using only five yards of canvas and a bear's liver? Or using only bison dung and a feather boa? (None of those examples are real - I use those only as examples of what is supposed to be, according to the reviewers, "hilarious." It's just not funny after a while. It gets tiring and predictable.) I found absolutely nothing to hold on to, no depth to this, nothing to reflect on. Maybe charming isn't enough? If you ask for a little more from your reading, even from a novel you choose because you want it to be fun, then I would look elsewhere. The story of Don Quixote is great because it breaks your heart. The whole point of something being quixotic is that the quest is doomed. So if it's a picaresque novel with substance you're looking for, maybe it would be better to read Don Quixote? Or a short book of tall tales?

In the spirit of the American tall tale, especially those crafted by Mark Twain, Mosher has come up with a dilly: a retelling of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Ripe with humor, and featuring a memorable character in Private True Teague Kinneson, a Yankee original. The novel has as its narrator Ticonderoga, Kinneson's wide-eyed adolescent nephew,a figure not unlike Twain's Huck in a number of ways. As traditional history gets turned on its ear, Kinneson runs roughshod over the American landscape, giving readers a fresh look at some sacred "accounts."

Warm up your sense of humor, sit back, relax and take a trip with two guys who showed Lewis & Clark the way. This book is just plain fun. It isn't a history book - but it isn't meant to be. I just wish real history books were as pleasurable to read (and they could be).

Mosher lets us ride along with Private True Teague Kinneson and his nephew Ti, short for Ticonderoga, as they blaze the trail from Vermont to the Pacific via Boston, New York, DC, Monticello and points west.

I know this isn't the way it really happened. But it would be a blast if it had. Treat yourself to an enjoyable book.

What's your meat and bread? This is a comedy dressed up in historical clothes, and although the intent was good this tale never seems to make up it's mind whether it's going to be primarily fish or fowl...and the result is, well, rather limp and "foul"!... Mr. Mosher can be a master of describing the weft and warp of a place; in particular, the lively lovely backwood hills of Vermont...But he has stepped down from his excellent Green Mountain tales in "A Stranger In the Kingdom", and "Northern Borders" among others and vaulted a few of those characters right into a pile of..err.. cow pie here...
His tales of the Kenniston family are better left in Vermont...Even overlooking the fact that this work can't make up it's mind what kind of tale it will be...It doesn't linger long enough in one place to tell what it has bitten off-quite a load here...Sure enough there are places Mosher leads his characters to that have some possibilities for leaving you with a word meal that will stick to your minds ribs as his main character True Teague Kenniston and his nephew yonder out across early Colonial America in an overlooked huff as they weren't chosen as part of the official "Lewis and Clark" delegation sent out by President Jefferson...or so the story goes...
But the delicious rich meal we get in Mosher's other works always come down to the fact that we have the miles thick background of a well etched out Vermont landscape for his story's back pockets...This novels "tail" seems never to quite catch up to it's surroundings...The scenes are not very well fleshed out...Mosher doesn't need to be like Dickens here, but for us to feel bad for his characters when held up by the Indians, we need a little more description please, about their "Vermont"...Without giving us the sense of place in his other stories visa vie Vermont...We're left with a rambling tale hundreds of miles long and only an inch or two thick...The reader interested in Mosher's usually excellent writing would do better by heading to his not long ago published "Northern Borders"...There a reader will find outstanding short stories even one of which gives you a better sense of character and place than Mr. Mosher's entire ill advised adventure here away from his beloved hills of Vermont...

I've always enjoyed Mr. Mosher's novels about Kingdom County in Vermont, so I was encouraged to purchase this book because its main characters were natives of that fictional place. Also, having read Stephen Ambrose's account of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, I assumed that I could tell if the stories of both meshed well. This book really had me laughing, and it revealed a side to Mr. Mosher's writing that I had not suspected existed. He took a historical event and inserted (deftly) two main fictional protagonists and made them appear to be actual participants in the exploration of the Louisiana Territory. Along the way we learn about the true origin of baseball, among other odd things, and grow to know that love the two offbeat characters with whom we cross uncharted country. If you enjoy a historical romp occasionally, along with a well-written story and fantastically-drawn characters, I heartily recommend this book!