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The Morning River

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The Morning River

Paperback(Large Print)

$26.99

Paperback(Large Print)
$26.99

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Overview

"In 1825, Richard Hamilton, a Harvard philosophy student, arrives in St. Louis on business. After being robbed and beaten, he joins the crew of the Maria, a fur trader's keelboat heading to the Upper Yellowstone River. On his journey, Richard begins the adventure of a lifetime. Meanwhile, Packrat, a Pawnee warrior, captures Heals Like a Willow, a young Shoshone medicine woman. However, slaves with spiritual connections can-and do-fight back. As the Maria travels deeper into the wilderness, Richard and Willow cross paths. They are seekers of knowledge and spirit but separated by time and birthright. As their love begins to unfold, terrible consequences--seen and unseen--are the result"--

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About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798885794497
Publisher:	Gale, A Cengage Group
Publication date:	12/06/2023
Series:	Saga of the Mountain Sage , #1
Edition description:	Large Print
Sales rank:	445,402
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

W. MICHAEL GEAR, who holds a master's degree in archaeology, has worked as a professional archaeologist since 1978. He is currently principal investigator for Wind River Archaeological Consultants. His other books include Long Ride Home, Big Horn Legacy, and Coyote Summer. With his wife Kathleen O'Neal Gear, he is the co-author of the bestselling First North American series.

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

Through seven novels, most recently People of the Lightning, Gear (writing with Kathleen O'Neal Gear) has re-created the life of Native Americans of 2000 years ago. In his first solo hardcover, Gear moves ahead to 1825, intending, as he states in a foreword, to puncture current rosy "myths" about the Plains Indians. "The people of the Plains," Gear says, "took slaves, murdered women and children, committed genocide on their neighbors, and broke treaties." This is revisionist, pedagogical fiction, then, and the narrative shows it not only through its luxuriant detail but also through lengthy expository speeches that impede narrative flow. Gear's lens on the past is Richard Hamilton, a petulant Harvard philosophy student who's sent by his father on business to St. Louis. There, Richard loses his father's bankroll and is sold as an indentured servant, spinning him into an adventure up the Mississippi that brings him up against frontiersfolk and Indians who are alike in nobility and depravity. Gear is a vigorous writer, and when he lets the often brutal action speak for itself, he tells a gripping tale, one to be continued in a sequel, Coyote Summer. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gear is better known as the coauthor of several novels set in pre-Columbian North America (People of the Lightning, 1995, etc.), but his first volume in a coming-of-age saga set in 1825 demonstrates a rather formidable individual storytelling gift, his strong theme overshadowing occasional didacticism.
Richard Hamilton, timid Harvard philosophy student and intellectual snob (with a propensity for verbally biting the hand that feeds him), accepts a challenge from his father: Deliver $30,000 to a business associate in St. Louis. If he doesn't accept the task, the elder Hamilton will cut the purse strings. Appalled by his father's lack of appreciation for abstract philosophy—but also by the prospect of supporting himself—Richard leaves Boston determined to remain true to his ideals and untainted by any necessary association with the "animals" and "savages" inhabiting the frontier. Predictably, one of the "animals" takes umbrage at Richard's contempt and retaliates. Richard, now penniless, finds himself sold into a two-year indenture as a deckhand on a Missouri River keelboat engaged in an illegal trading expedition led by an old mountain man named Travis Hartman. Richard's journey up the river is one of intellectual discovery as well as a quest for self-knowledge. In apposition to Richard is Heal Like A Willow, a young Shoshoni woman whose philosophy is also limited by lack of experience. Her rigidity of beliefs mirrors Richard's own, but experience gained during her time on the keelboat transforms her limited perceptions of white culture, in contrast to Richard's continued inability to admit the fallacies of his philosophy.
Weaving together realistic characters, authentic dialogue that only occasionally overdoes the frontier dialect, and a historically accurate setting, Gear creates believable fiction that transcends and transforms its predictable plot.

Kirkus Reviews

“Gear is a vigorous writer....He tells a gripping tale.” —Publishers Weekly
“Michael Gear's Indians, mountain men, entrepreneurs, and even effete New Englanders ring faithful to their time and place. This is not only a good story with finely etched characters, but good history as well. Michael Gear has crafted fiction and history into a good read.” —Robert M. Utley, author of The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull
“I am thrilled with pleasure and deep satisfaction at every page I read.” —Norman Zollinger, Golden Spur Award-winning author of Riders to Cibola and Chapultepec

From the Publisher

I am thrilled with pleasure and deep satisfaction at every page I read.

Golden Spur Award-winning author of Riders to Cibo Norman Zollinger

Michael Gear's Indians, mountain men, entrepreneurs, and even effete New Englanders ring faithful to their time and place. This is not only a good story with finely etched characters, but good history as well. Michael Gear has crafted fiction and history into a good read.

author of The Lance and the Shield: The Life a Robert M. Utley

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