| Mary Dodd is a young white woman, living in Chicago in the 1870s. To her very rich and powerful father's dismay, she moves out of his house to live with Harry Ames, one of his employees, whom her family considers beneath her. They have two children together out of wedlock. Her father has her committed to a mental institution becuase of what one of her doctors describes as her promiscuity. Throughout the book, she will wonder if Ames was in on her commitment or not. She is also always deeply concerned about the children she's been separated (she assumes they've been taken to live with her family).
In order to escape the lunatic asylum, Mary becomes part of a very unusual government program. The government is recruiting one thousand white women to go out west and marry and become pregnant by Native Americans, members of the Northern Cheyenne group. A Cheyenne leader has suggested this as a means of assimilating his tribe into white society (the Cheyenne society is matrilineal). Dodd and a small group of other recruits - including a mute, a spinster nurse, a English naturalist who foregoes skirts in favor or trousers, a stuckup Southern belle who goes nowhere without her small dog, a feisty black woman who escaped slavery via the underground railroad, a huge Swiss woman whose face resembles a potato, and a pair of lusty Irish twins - go west via train to Fort Laramie. There Mary Dodd has a brief but meaningful fling with an army officer. Nevertheless, she goes on with the other women to join the Cheyenne tribe, marrying their chief, Little Wolf. (She's his third wife.) She and her white friends gradually begin to live as Native Americans. By the end of the book, Mary Dodd has had her baby, but conflict has begun to arise between the Cheyenne and the U.S. Army. | ||
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Plot & Themes Tone of book? - thoughtful Time/era of story - 1600-1899 Romance/Romance Problems Yes Ethnic/Regional/Religion Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book Ethnic/regional/gender life Yes Lover is Main Character Gender - Female Profession/status: Age: - 20's-30's Ethnicity/Nationality Main Adversary Identity: - society How sensitive is this character? Intelligence - Average intelligence Setting How much descriptions of surroundings? - 3 () United States Yes The US: - West Prairie? Yes City? Yes City: - Chicago Misc setting Writing Style Sex in book? Yes What kind of sex: - impregnation/reproduction - actual description of hetero sex - Weiner talk! - rape/molest Amount of dialog - significantly more descript than dialog |
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