Customer Reviews

The White

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"The White" is sparse, yet rich with imagery and color. The story opens with a young girl's plight as her family is captured and destroyed by Indians in the mid 1700's. She alone lives to share the tale. Mary's story, based on fact, is told with a simple style befitting her mindset. She is emotionally dead and even language, in the aftermath of her sorrow, is a useless appendage to her.

As the story moves along, we see Mary open slowly to the warmth of her adopted Seneca family. Particularly, the sincere and sensitive advances of her future Indian husband crack her shell of grief. At times, Larsen's words have haunting power. At other times, they simply fill the book in its headlong rush to a conclusion. So much is skipped over that it was hard not to feel cheated. Unlike other reviewers, I appreciated the first-person accounts, almost wishing Larsen had pursued this approach throughout. If Larsen truly wanted to fictionalize and expand upon this true story, why not do it with depth? Why, for example, should we feel any true sorrow over the deaths of Mary's sons when we see so little of the relationship between them all?

The aspects of Seneca life and thought are tantalizingly interspersed through the story, and the dark images of injustice done to and by the Indians give this novella historical worth. As a story, it is interesting, as well as briefly and intermittently moving. Although fully worth the brief amount of time required to read, "The White" left me wondering why I wasn't given more to chew on. As small reward, Larsen does end with Mary's first childhood memory, one that not only carries symbolic and emotional meaning, but also calls into question our very understanding of the book's simple title.

Perhaps, on a second reading, this book is not so simple after all.

I like historical fiction, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on THE WHITE by Deborah Larsen. I had also read a previous account of Mary Jemison, a white women who lived her entire life with the Indians. She willingly stayed it seems as she was given the opportunity to return to her own people a number of times. Mary was sixteen in 1758 when she and her family were taken by a Shawnee raiding party. She is adopted by two Seneca sisters and given the name Two-Falling Voices. She resembles their brother who'd been killed in battle and is taking his place.
THE WHITE is a small book, only two hundred nineteen pages with lots of white space. Larsen alternates between Mary's own voice and third person. It's hard to know if the italicized material is Mary's actual voice or a fictionalized version of what she said in A NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF MARY JEMISON: THE WHITE WOMAN OF THE GENESEE, by James Everett Seaver, M.D., which was first published in 1823.
Despite its brevity, I was impressed by a number of things. Mary's first husband, Sheninjee, was not the chauvinistic warrior of countless Hollywood movies. He woos Mary by helping her hoe corn. He dies on a trading mission and she takes a second husband, Hiokatoo, an ancient warrior who'd fought in countless battles. He likes to brag about the number of scalps he's taken, and at first Mary is offended by this, until they discuss it. The discussion sounds like something out of Margaret Meade. Larsen emphasizes the fact that the Indians did not invent scalping. The French put bounties on the heads of the aboriginals and the scalp was evidence.
At the end of her life Mary owns 10,000 acres of land, but she also loses three of her sons who killed each other, their brains pickled by drink. The funeral eulogy is quite shocking. "Go! Get out of here! Better that in your cowardice you are gone."
Larsen also likes to mix in quotes from the Bible, often referring to Job and by comparison Mary. Of Mary Jemison, James Seaver says, "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." There's more, but it's obvious that he had enormous respect for this woman who lived among "savages".

Propelled by lyrical prose and a strong narrative voice Deborah Larsen's novel fascinates. By taking an actual event and imagining what-might-have-been, the author is able to offer a sometimes savage, sometimes beautiful picture of life in mid 18th century America.

As Ms. Larsen explains in her prefatory note, a young woman around the age of sixteen was taken from her Pennsylvania home by a Shawnee raiding party and their French compadres. The year was 1758, and the girl's name is thought to be Mary Jamison.

We learn this again through our fictional protagonist and narrator, Mary: "I was born a white at sea on the way to the New World...But I was taken by those whom we called Indians. Nearly speechless for a time, I was beset by terrors."

Following their abduction the captives are forced to endure a torturous march during which Mary's parents are killed. Fearful and alone, Mary hopes for death, but she is selected for adoption by two young Seneca women. Later, Mary learns that she is to take the place of a brother lost to the white men, and is given the name Two-Falling-Voices. "According to custom, I stood in a brother's place, though I may just as easily have been scalped, since satisfaction and justice came either through the taking of life or by means of adoption."

During her early days with the Senecas Mary remains stoically silent, remembering the Scripture she had heard read in her former home and sadly doing as she was bidden. But eventually the two sisters are able to reach her and she learns the Seneca tongue and customs.

As time passes she catches the eye of Sheninjee, a young Delaware warrior who marries her. She comes to care for him, and is devastated when their first child is still born. Further heartbreak comes to her when Sheninjee is killed during a trading trip.

Yet, love comes again for Mary when she meets an older warrior, Hiokatoo, who relishes telling stories of his heroic past. She describes him as "so handsome that people sometimes stared, but he was always and everywhere faithful to me - I never feared that his shadow would fall across the pallets of other women." With him she has five children, 3 girls and a boy.

Throughout the years there are opportunities for Mary to return to the white world yet she chooses to remain with the Seneca for the remainder of her long life.

Ms. Larsen has penned an arresting story in which she presents a heroine torn between two cultures with sympathy and understanding.

- Gail Cooke

This brief beautifully written novel, based on the real life of Mary Jemison, reads more like a short epic poem. Written in an almost stream-of-consciousness style, the narrative follows the history of Ms. Jemison from the time she is captured by the Shawnee until her death many years later. Until the day she died, she chose to remain with the Indians, even when provided with the choice of returning to the White world. In the interim, she marries twice (and is widowed both times) and bears 6 children. Her capture is sudden and shocking and she lives while she watches her entire family die. Her silence becomes her refuge; within it she heals, and is able to adjust to her new life. She becomes a part of the Seneca tribe in trade for a brother who died fighting the whites. Thus the brutal conflict, as well as the peaceful blending, of two cultures becomes the backdrop of Mary's existence. The wonders of the natural world, as well as the cruelty of mankind, are revealed in the descriptions of the world and the people who inhabit it. The love of family and the pain and loss of war are both described in prose that works as poetry. Mary, taken in by two sisters who care for her, slowly adapts to the Seneca ways of life and ultimately finds a world she does not want to leave. The story slowly unfolds and the narration is split between third person and first person. Mary's thoughts are scattered at times, but they parallel the action and can be quite effective and moving. However, I wanted to read more, in more depth, than this brief novel provided to me. I found Mary's story fascinating and this book just gave me a taste of it. Lovely novel, far too brief.

Deborah Larsen's novel "The White" is a compelling narrative that reads like the best non-fiction. Larsen has taken a true bit of history and woven it into a best-seller novel. Her name was Mary, until Indians kidnapped her. Watching the death and scalping of her family renders her numb. She remains in this state as her brother is adopted into one tribe and she into another. "The White" chronicles Mary's life as she might have told it to another. I found the story captivating and would recommend it to other avid readers.
Beverly J Scott author of "Righteous Revenge"...

I bought this book when it first became available, and have just now read it. It took one day for me to finish, and I am not bragging, it was just that I could not put the book down. A very simple story. For me, it is a part of history that I had never heard of. I looked up some information on the actual Mary Jemison after finishing the book. No heavy, hard DHM (deep hidden meaning) here. Girl gets kidnapped, girl learns to live with her situation, girl turns out OK. Very simple. She became comfortable with her "adopted" family. She did what so many of us have to do in our lives, take what we have been dealt and move on. Find the positives and enjoy what we can.

In 1798, sixteen year old Mary Jemison was taken from her home in Pennsylvania by a Shawnee raiding party. Her parents were murdered and scalped, but Mary was given to a Seneca family whose son, roughly Mary's age, had been killed by whites several months before.

Though at first Mary resists her new life, she gradually begins to accept her fate, even taking a Delaware warrior as her husband. This novel is a fictionalized retelling of her true story, and primarily focuses on the inner workings of Mary's mind as she struggles with the two sides of her identity -- her desire to stay white and her growing respect for her new Native American world.

I enjoyed this book, but do have one complaint. The novel, which is relatively short, is written in a very Spartan style, and while I realize that sixteen year olds aren't terribly observant, I would have liked to see more detail about the Seneca culture and the environment Mary finds herself in. The book's focus is on what's going on in Mary's mind, but those "inner workings" don't really amount to all that much, and what's there isn't terribly unique, either. This book could've been so much more! I really felt that Larsen had wasted a terrific opportunity here.

Nevertheless, though I found the book a little unsatisfying overall, I still was entertained and would recommend it to others.

This book of fiction is based on true historical persons and events...... The author tells the story of Mary Jamison/Jemison, a white woman who was captured by a Shawnee raiding party when she was only 16 yrs. old, near her home which later became Gettysburg, Pa. Her whole family was killed and scalped in this raid.....Mary learned the Indian ways,raised a family and never returned to the white world.....She does eventually own a large piece of land which has been a dream of hers all her life. Mary befriends a family of former black slaves and also has some white friends.....This is a beautiful poetic book. I read it in one day and loved it.

This was a very easy & enjoyable book. I love historical fiction and truly looked forward to reading this book but,(here comes the bad part)... when I finished it I felt like I had eaten my soup, and salad but never got the main course. It was not a satisfying read. I think it needed more character development, and descriptions. I think it could have been a lot better.

This book is a very poetic interpretation of Mary Jemison's life.As someone who teaches history to the public I understand the challenge of constructing a story out of historic documents.
and I was pleased with Larsen's book.I think the author was highly successful in presenting the story of an individual who lived in early America.
As a woman of color, it was gratifying to finally read a historic
novel which discusses how ethnicity affected people's day-o-day lives. Larsen does a good job of presenting information in
a balanced way.

One reviewer said that she felt the novel was something a middle school student would read, and I agree, but that is another thing I enjoyed about it. Don't get me wrong the book is as complex
and subtle as Moby Dick, but it is also very accessible in part because it is a first person account of a woman whose formal education in English was aruptly cut off.

FOR TEACHERS
This book is an excellent resource to use along with
the actual account of Mary Jemison.