I have just recently finished reading “The Indifferent Stars Above” by Daniel James Brown and I feel moved to offer some of my own feelings about this excellent book.
Its subject matter covers a number of topics that interest me greatly. That being: History (particularly the age of western colonization), exploration, and survival. The story of the Donner Party and their ill-fated journey into Califonia during the late 1840s was elevated by the author’s eloquent narrative-historical writing style. The idea of leaving everything you know behind to travel across the country in an oxen-pulled, covered wagon seems so foreign to us in this modern age, but the idea of struggle and wanting to make the lives of you and your family better can be very relatable.
This book mainly follows the journey of Sarah Graves, a member of a farming family from Illinois who all decided to pack up and leave for greener grass, no pun intended, somewhere out west. After a deceitful promise by some California landowners of a shorter route to the Nappa Valley through the Sierra Nevada mountains, Sarah and the rest of the emigrant party led by George Donner became stuck and hunkered down by a seemingly early and violent winter. Multiple forrays into the mountainous pass to seek help saw many of the survivors relying on cannibalism to avoid death from hunger if death from the elements hadn’t already come first.
Without spoiling too much I’ll say that the scene was grizzly, tragic, and devolves into what I’d call a borderline horror story/window into hell. What I found so touching about the tale of the Donner party, while I wasn’t reeling in horror, was the sheer strength many of the members were able to muster to eventually push on through to safety. They faced situations and conditions which I previously thought were impossible to survive. I’m still shocked at how any of them made it, and yet the survivors’ descents are alive and well in America to this day, the actual author of the book being one of them. It’s stories like this that can only make you feel inadequate about the so-called discomforts of your average day-to-day life. I think every so often we need those kinds of reminders that life right now probably isn’t so bad. We need reminders that the strength of others can in fact instill strength in us and that our own struggles may see a positive end in inspiring others.
I can’t recommend The Indifferent Stars Above enough.
