Simon & Schuster, Jul 2001, 24.00, 400 pp.
ISBN: 0684871432
In 1826 Louisville, Mary Bullitt is considered a spinster by the time she reaches twenty-two. However, things change when General Henry Atkinson, Commander of the Sixth Regiment and guardian of the frontier stretching from the Canadian border to the Red River, arrives in town. Mary's mother wants her daughter to accept Henry's courtship.
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When Henry proposes, Mary says yes. They marry and move to the Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. Compared to the grandeur of her former home, her new abode seems like a hovel. However, Mary is contented because she likes her new spouse though he keeps many secrets and is very silent. Over the next eighteen years together, Mary observes the destruction of the Indians by the General and others reluctantly obeying orders from DC.
THE GOOD JOURNEY is a look back to a time when the military carried out Washington's directions to slaughter the Indians so that “Americans” can replace them on their land. Through Mary and Henry's eyes, the readers see a perspective that will shake the audience with an American destruction that is nothing less than genocide. Micaela Gilchrist provides quite an Americana romance of the American West reminiscent of the great L'Amour.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
