A Country of Strangers

Like in his classic novel "The Light in the Forest," Conrad Richter's "A Country of Strangers" takes the reader back in time to the colonial America of 1764 when the Indians were forced to give back all their white captives in order to ratify a peace treaty with the British. Among these captives is Stone Girl a young woman who has spent most of her life with the Indians. She has even married a warrior and given birth to a son. Although she intially avoids returning to the whites, circumstances have Stone Girl and her son being sold to a French missionary who then tries to locate her white family.Unlike the protagonist of "The Light in the Forest," True Son(who is reintroduced in the later part of this novel); Stone Girl does have some hazy memories of her former life among the whites. And these memories cause her to be sent to the home of a man thought to be her white father. Instead of being embraced as the long lost child, Stone Girl is met with cold indifference and hostility. Her white mother, who was her clearest memory, is dead, and a young woman claiming to be the lost daughter has already imposed herself on the family. Stone Girl's claims as daughter are rejected, and she is sent to work as a servant. Only her white father's Quaker mother, who suspects her son is being deceived by an imposter, holds any sympathy for this "Indian" girl who could very well be her real granddaughter. Will Stone Girl ever find a home for herself and her son? Or will she forever walk in a country of strangers?