Snow Mountain Passage

It is not enough to say that Snow Mountain Passage is a compelling read, though it is surely that. One must add that it is the kind of compelling read that does not allow itself to be discarded when finished, the kind that requires the spellbound reader to sit with eyes closed, book in hand, Braille-like, feeling almost through the cover, pondering and recalling with pleasure the images, the passages, the characters, the awful tragedy, the splendid triumph. It is among the most realistic pieces of long fiction I have read in years, and the most imaginative. There is no page without something to admire. I turn at random to page 153 and find Abner Valentine, the archvillain who refuses to be a villain. "One acknowledges hiim with a finger to the hat. He rides on, like a general reviewing troops. Even his horse seems to strut." Or on page 158 the description by Patty Reed, the observer/heroine, of the south-facing Pacific Coast beach at low tide, where "the water has been six feet deep and soon will be that deep again, you can walk along through air still somehow owned by the sea." Take your pick, stopping at random anywhere in the book to find something in image or language to admire. We admire too the great strength of the survivors of this horrible ordeal and the fatalistic vision driving them into the stupid tragedy that they and circumstances have created--and then through it. We hate their arrogance and love their courage so much that finally we have to admit that they are not much different from Californians or West-Coasters or pioneers or ourselves or striving human beings anywhere, trying desperately to define their own destiny and having it defined for them by powers they can never fully comprehend, let alone influence much or control at all. It's a wonderful book, its language is beautiful, and I'm going to read it again, beginning with these opening words by Patty Reed: "Last night I dreamed again about my mother. She was standing in the snow." And I will stop to admire her description of James Frazier Reed's mode of transport across the prairies: "A double-decker Palace Car that took four yoke to pull it, with upholstered seats inside, and a thoroughbred racing mare, and hired hands, and brandy after dinner-that was papa's vision of being a pioneer." And, like the Reeds and with them, I will keep going. You will too.

This beautifully written story describes the experiences of the Donner Party travelling west to live in California. The extreme solution for hunger that they used and for which they are primarily known is a small part of the story. Rather, the enormity of the decision to lift up roots and move family and possessions by horse and wagon into a rugged and unknown wilderness is what is so powerfully described. James D. Houston has the ability to dramatically portray many different personality types interacting with each other. He brings out the best and worst traits in his characters; traits that happen to be readily identifiable for most readers. His technique of using an 82 year old woman's recollections of when she was the 8 year old daughter of Jim Reed, one of the main characters, adds realism and pathos to an already emotional and sad story. This novel is highly recommended for those who want to reflect upon our shared humanity with the American pioneers who preceded us.

One of the most horrifying stories in American history is that of the ill-fated Donner party, stranded in the high Sierras by a vicious snowstorm and held there for months without food before rescue was possible. When the news hit the newspapers at the time, it was sensationalized far beyond the truth, and the horror has never left us. Now native Californian James D. Houston, an award-winning writer, has written a novel about it. A lesser writer would have drawn mostly upon the gory aspects of the story, but Houston is a sensitive author, and in his hands it becomes one of death and survival, of ordeal and weary triumph.Houston has concentrated his novel on two of the characters: James Frazier Reed, and his daughter Patty.James Reed was an affluent father when he set out in 1846 with his wife Margaret and their four children following the California dream and the untried map of Lansford Hastings. From the beginning, Reed incurred the envy of many of his fellow travelers because of his large, specially-made wagon and many comforts the family were taking along the trail. The envy would finally wreak its effects on Reed when after being attacked by a fellow traveler, John Snyder, Reed kills the other man. Reed is almost hung by his irate companions, but after some reason prevails, he is instead banished and sent on ahead while his wife and children continue with the wagon train. No one knows at the time, but being sent ahead will save Reed's life by allowing him to cross the mountains ahead of the snowstorm. His wife and family will be stuck there without him, while he traverses central California looking for a rescue party, then has to wait frustrating months until the snow is passable.Meanwhile, Patty, aged eight, is high in the mountains with her mother, small brothers and older sister. When she is an old woman in her eighties and living in the same house where Houston now lives, she remembers the time through her child's eyes, the intense isolation, gnawing hunger, and severe deprivation experienced by the survivors, the many deaths, and eventual cannibalism. This alternating of narration is a very effective structure for Houston to have followed and dramatizes the plight of the characters. Snow Mountain Passage reads like a suspense thriller, even though the reader knows the outcome of the journey and the people who undertook it. Thanks to one of Reed's descendants and his own great skill as an author, Houston is able to weave the story together by alternating Reed's search for a rescue party and Patty's memoir. I could not put the book down until the final page was read.This will surely become a classic of historical fiction. Mari Lu Robbins

Comparisons to other historical novels of similar epic sweep, such as Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove," are perphaps inevitable. James D. Houston, however, in "Snow Mountain Passage" escapes the colloquial and anachronistic style of McMurtry's dialogue in favor of an authentic cadence and vocabulary of the Old West, in language as magnificent as the landscape through which James Reed, the protagonist, moves west ahead of the Donner Party, and then east to their rescue.The novel is written principally through two points of view: James Reed, the father, adventurer, sometime rascal member of an eighty-person wagon train heading west to California from Illinois; and Patty Reed, his eight-year old daughter, who stays behind in the snowy mountains of the Sierra and endures the harrowing privations of the settlers marooned by the lake which now bears their name. The split perspective allows Houston to tell the tale of California's formation from the early days of the Mexican War (significantly, Houston accords the Mexican settlers the dignity of the title "Californians," and pictures the settlers as the usurpers they were). Patty's story is told through her "trail notes," written many years later in Santa Cruz, where she lived out the last years of her long life. Ingeniously, Houston times the months of her journal entries in 1920 with the months of the Donner experience in the mountains.The voices ring true. The bold, fearless account of James Reed, and the resigned voice of his young daughter now grown old, who, like Holocaust survivors and others who endured too much, is resigned to a life forever scarred and altered.While other reviewers have noted the detail of natural description with a critical eye, this cavil perhaps misses the point. In "Snow Mountain Passage" as in all of Houston's writing, the land itself is a character, a shaping force. Maybe the most wonderful thing about this wonderful novel is that it allows the reader with an imagination as full and daring as Houston's the chance (the only chance) to live in the California that once existed, before freeways, strip malls, and sprawling subdivisions obliterated its incomparable natural beauty and diversity.

There have been so many excellent books about the 19th century American West in the past year, starting with "Gates of the Alamo" to "The Borderlands" and "The Heartsong of Charging Elk" (my nomination for the best novel of 2000), straight through to "Snow Mountain Passage." James Houston tells the story of the Donner party from the point of view of James Reed, a member of the wagon train who did not spend the winter of 1846 in the Sierra Nevadas. He had been sent on ahead, and was one of the people trying to reach the stranded families from the other side of the mountains. His frustration is excruciating as he battles for support in an area that is consumed with breaking away from Mexico. Rescue parties he mounts are turned back again and again by blizzards. Reed refuses to accept that rescuers may not be able to reach the settlers until the terrible winter is over. He knows that his family and the others cannot survive that long.Survival in the freezing camp is recorded by his youngest daughter, Patty, who looks back on that winter as a woman in her 80's. Her story is told with the clear eyes of a child and the wisdom of an old woman. The fact that there were any survivors is incredible. This was an exceptionally frigid winter, and the families crammed into hastily thrown-together shacks, without heat, polar fleece, or thermals, eating anything, anything to stay alive. There was little heroism. Each group was on its own. Patty's trail diaries reveal the smell, the anger, the hunger, the despair that no one will come to help in time.The desperation is heightened for the Reed family because they are one of the reasons the group did not make it over the summit before winter set in. What keeps James Reed from hero status is his hubris in building an enormous two-story wagon so his family could travel west in comfort. This "Palace Car" slowed everyone down, delaying the group's arrival in the Sierra Nevadas until too late in the year. The Reeds' descent from being the most envied group on the trail to the one with the fewest remaining resources makes Jim Reed even more complex, frantic to save his family from the result of his pride, yet so wrenched by guilt that he is tempted to flee south to fight the Mexicans.Vivid and powerful, "Snow Mountain Passage" is a fine and affecting example of literary fiction, historical fiction, and plain great reading.