The Lost Journals of Sacajewea: A Novel

$18.00

Winner of the American Book Award
Winner of the Montana Book Award
Winner of the PNBA Book Award

“In my seventh winter, when my head only reached my Appe’s rib, a White Man came into camp. Bare trees scratched sky. Cold was endless. He moved through trees like strikes of sunlight. My Bia said he came with bad intentions, like a Water Baby’s cry.”

Description

Among the most memorialized women in American history, Sacajewea served as interpreter and guide for Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery. In this visionary novel, acclaimed Indigenous author Debra Magpie Earling brings this mythologized figure vividly to life, casting unsparing light on the men who brutalized her and recentering Sacajewea as the arbiter of her own history.

Here, the young Sacajewea is bright and bold, growing strong from the hard work of “learning all ways to survive.” When her village is raided, Sacajewea is kidnapped and then gambled away to Charbonneau, a French Canadian trapper. Heavy with grief, she learns how to survive at the edge of a strange new world. When Lewis and Clark’s expedition party arrives, Sacajewea knows she must cross a vast and brutal terrain with her newborn son, the white man who owns her, and a company of men who wish to conquer and commodify the world she loves.

Written in lyrical, dreamlike prose, The Lost Journals of Sacajewea is an astonishing work of art and a powerful tale of perseverance–the Indigenous woman’s story that hasn’t been told.

Review

“[In The Lost Journals of Sacajewea] the suffering–and bold, ingenious agency–of women held as captives by both Native and Euro-Americans is rendered with special vividness [. . .] The narration is rich in realistic detail but animated by a dreamlike intensity [. . .] Throughout the text, Sacajewea memorably enacts what Gerald Vizenor dubs survivance, the negotiation of existential challenges with a spirited, oppositional inventiveness. A profoundly moving imagining of the impressions and contributions of a major historical figure.” –Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“At its surface, this may be a novel, but deeper down, it’s a spirit- song, an invocation, a magical incantation. The language simultaneously keeps Sacajewea unknowable and gives us a path to greater understanding. The poetic prose elevates it from a tragic story to a founding mythic ethos of America. In this, Earling has given us a new model for the literature of the West. The Lost Journals of Sacajewea changes how novels will be written, or at least it should.” –Big Sky Journal

“[ The Lost Journals of Sacajewea] offers new perspective on what is known, and debated, about the life of Sacajewea, including her age, her marriage to a French fur-trader (Toussaint Charbonneau), and her experience as the only woman traveling on the 1804-1806 Corp of Discovery expedition with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. In poetic prose, Earling interweaves factual accounts of Sacajewea’s life with a first-person narrative deeply rooted in the physicality of landscape and brutality of the times.” –Seattle Times

“[ The Lost Journals of Sacajewea is] an impressionistic, poetic account, one that vividly renders external hardships and internal thoughts, giving equal weight to each. [. . .] it delivers a uniquely thorough perspective on the mind of a particular young woman, both ordinary and extraordinary. In this way, we come to understand Sacajewea more deeply–certainly more than we understand the men of famous names like Lewis and Clark. lt’s a book to enjoy like a river: you give yourself over to it and follow where it takes you.” –Chicago Review of Books

“Earling adds a much-needed Native woman’s perspective to Sacajewea’s story, bringing a note of resilience to her unflinching account of the white men’s violence and depredation: ‘Women do not become their Enemy captors. We survive them.’ This is a beautiful reclamation.” –Publishers Weekly

“Earling ‘shatters’ conventional form to create a movement that is akin to poetry but much more dynamic. Earling bends and slants words, electrifying Sacajewea’s attempts to comprehend and describe what is happening in her often violent and unstable world .[ . . .] Earling creates immersive landscapes where women like Sacajewea and Louise Yellow Knife [from Perma Red] are given an opportunity to speak; she writes with distinct, unflinching attention even as her characters suffer brutal physical and sexual violence.” –High Country News

“If the Olympics awarded medals for feats of the imagination, this book would be good for the Gold. Marvelously dreamed, starkly and poetically told. The story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition will never be the same.” –Ted Kooser, author of Delights and Shadows

“Debra Magpie Earling’s gorgeous retelling of Sacajewea’s journey shatters modern-day narrative conventions and documented history. With mesmerizing language and incantatory rhythms, Earling delivers an urgent accounting from the true world in a work that feels more alive than written. Yes, alive in a way I didn’t recognize–yet still felt! How deeply, deeply I fell into this story. The bottom line is that The Lost Journals of Sacajewea is an awakening, a revelation, a devastating triumph, and a literary magic act.” –Adrianne Harun, author of A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain

About the Author

Debra Magpie Earling is the author of Perma Red and The Lost Journals of Sacajewea. An earlier version of the latter, written in verse, was produced as an artist book during the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark expedition. She has received both a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is retired from the University of Montana, where she was named professor emeritus in 2021. She is Bitterroot Salish.

Product details

  • Publisher :  Milkweed Editions (May 23, 2023)
  • Language :  English
  • Paperback :  264 pages
  • ISBN-10 : 1639550747
  • ISBN-13 : 9781639550746
  • Item Weight :  13 ounces
  • Dimensions :  5.75 x 1 x 8.5 inches

Additional information

Weight 0.8 lbs
Dimensions 8.4 × 5.5 × 0.7 in

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