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Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML:Based on the life of Marie Dorion, the first mother to cross the Rocky Mountains and remain in the Northwest, A Name of Her Own is the fictionalized adventure account of a real womanâ??s fight to settle in a new landscape, survive in a nation at war, protect her sons and raise them well and, despite an abusive, alcoholic husband, keep her marriage together. With two rambunctious young sons to raise, Marie Dorion refuses to be left behind in St. Louis when her husband heads West with the Wilson Hunt Astoria expedition of 1811. Faced with hostile landscapes, an untried expedition leader, and her volatile husband, Marie finds that the daring act she hoped would bind her family together may in the end tear them apart. On the journey, Marie meets up with the famous Lewis and Clark interpreter, Sacagawea. Both are Indian women married to mixed-blood men of French Canadian and Indian descent, both are pregnant, both traveled with expeditions led by white men, and both are raising sons in a white world. Together, the women forge a friendship that will strengthen and uphold Marie long after they part, even as she faces the greatest crisis of her life, and as she fights for her familyâ??s very survival with the courage and gritty determination that can only be fueled by a motherâ??s love.… (more)
User reviews
Although this novel has been highly acclaimed by other readers, I found it a slow read. The sections where Marie interracted with other characters on a personal level flowed well, but I got bogged down in the minutiae of the general day to day survival.
Marie was based on Marie Dorion
I have the second volume, Every Fixed Star, waiting to follow on, but I am seriously considering giving it a miss.
This telling is pretty straightforward, nothing fancy or especially lyrical about it. It's pretty typical of old-fashioned historical fiction.
Marie's husband was half French Canadian and half Native American, and a good interpreter. Unfortunately, he wasn't much of a husband. This story does tell of how so many women of the time were regarded as nothing but property.
I did have trouble keeping up with where Marie was in her travels, but that didn't bother me much. What did bother me is that the book is too long for the story it is telling, and I got bored. The name of her own part, while I understand what that was trying to convey, didn't really come across as it should. I doubt I'll read more in this series.