FOLLOW the RIVER (audiobook) by James Alexander Thom

Published by Tantor Audio in 2010.
Book originally published in 1981 by Ballantine Books.
Read by David Drummond.
Duration: 16 hours, 10 minutes.
Unabridged.

As the American frontier pushed ever-Westward during the Colonial Era, there were multiple major conflicts between the new White settlers and the various Indian groups. The last, and the biggest, was the war that Americans know as the French and Indian War (1754-1763). It was truly a global war involving not only France and England, but also a variety of countries around the world such as Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Russia and the Mughal Empire in India.

The war began as a power struggle between French and English colonists along with their Native American allies. Technically, a young Virginia militia leader named George Washington started the war when he tried to remove French Canadians who were building a trading post in what is now western Pennsylvania. The entire frontier was soon at war and little settlements on the extreme frontier, like Drapers Meadows, Virginia, were exposed - even if they had only the faintest idea there was a war going on.

In 1755, a group of Shawnee warriors attacked Drapers Meadows, a settlement of just a few families and killed or kidnapped about half of the inhabitants and took them to a large Shawnee town near the Ohio River in what is now northeastern Kentucky. One of the victims was Mary Draper Ingles (pronounced Ingalls) and this novel is the fictionalized story of her capture (along with her children), her life among the Shawnee and her escape with a fellow female captive who spoke mostly German. Mary had watched as she was taken to the Shawnee village and she realized that all she had to do was simply follow the river system back to her home. If only it were that simple. It turned into a 42 day walk back to an English frontier cabin across some of the roughest terrain in the Appalachians. They left in mid-October and arrived on December 1, 1755.

Photo by DWD

Their escape covered more than 500 miles and crossed an estimated 145 rivers or creeks, with little or no food. Oftentimes, they had to get soaked in water, climb cliffs or rockfalls and starved as they walked and the temperatures dropped. This terrain is difficult nowadays with modern equipment. Their accomplishment is astonishing when you consider their physical condition and almost complete lack of tools, equipment, nutrition and warm clothing. This book was thoroughly researched by the author who walked as much as their route as he possibly could. You can tell - the landscape is as much a character in the book as any single character.

Follow the River is an amazing book. It is not a happy book - how can it be when it is full of suffering, violence, death and tragedy? But, James Alexander Thom told the story so well that I felt like I was along for the whole tragic trip. It is sobering and compelling. It is all the more tragic when you consider that she left her children behind with the Shawnee because there was no way that they could survive this extremely difficult trek.

The audiobook was read by David Drummond. He does an excellent job with the accents throughout the book (the area was quite international considering how hard it was to get there) and the rest of the book overall. I do think it was a bit odd to chose a man to read the book considering that most of the dialogue of the book is spoken by women. A great deal of the book also deals with the internal thoughts of Mary.

This was a re-read for me, although it had been 26 years between readings. I remembered it as an excellent book and I am pleased to say that I still think it is excellent.

I rate this audiobook 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Follow the River by James Alexander Thom. 

FIRE in the WATER by James Alexander Thom

Published in 2015 by Blue River Press

Not many people know about the horrible story of the Sultana, a paddlewheel steamboat that sank into the Mississippi River in April of 1865. It is the worst maritime disaster in American history but was largely overshadowed by the events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and his dramatic funeral train tour from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois. The Sultana was grossly overcrowded. It was designed to carry 376 passengers, but it was carrying 2,155 passengers when three of its boilers exploded in the early morning hours of April 27, 1865.  Most of its passengers were survivors of the infamous Andersonville prisoner of war camp that were being shipped home. 

This book is technically a sequel to Saint Patrick's Battalion. It continues the story of a boy who traveled with an American army during the Mexican War. In Fire in the Water, that boy has grown up and become a famous war correspondent. He is traveling to Springfield with his newlywed wife to cover Lincoln's funeral. Along the way, he interviews as many of the former prisoners of war to work on a story about Andersonville.

This book starts out too slowly, but the last 50 pages or so are full of the kind of magic that James Alexander Thom can bring to historical fiction. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Fire in the Water by James Alexander Thom.

Indiana II by Darryl L. Jones and James Alexander Thom

Beautiful pictures, wonderful essay
  
Published in 1996 by Graphic Arts Press.
142 pages.

Darryl Jones captures Indiana's beauty like no one else. Jones has made several books filled with wonderful shots from all over Indiana, although he tends to focus on Southwestern Indiana hill country most of all. These are not all nature shots, like some of his other books. There are shots of small towns, grain silos, barns, the Colts, the Indy 500 and Conner Prairie.

Jones' work is paired with James Alexander Thom's essay on Indiana history, character, and its possible future. Thom's writing is not just mindless boosterism, but rather a thoughtful commentary by a Hoosier who is in love with his state, warts and all. The essay is just as wonderful as the pictures, if not better!

I am considering this as a gift for a relative who moved out of state just to remind her of home and its unique character.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Indiana II by Darryl Jones and James Alexander Thom. 

Reviewed on July 2, 2007.

Saint Patrick's Battalion: A Novel by James Alexander Thom

A disappointment

Published by Ballantine Books in 2006.

To start, let me establish my bona fides as a fan of Mr. Thom's work. Three of his novels sit on a shelf less than two feet from this computer. I have the featured review on Amazon.com one of his novels ("The Red Heart"). One of his books is on my Favorite Books List on my profile page. I actually designed a long-term project for my world history classes using historical fiction with his books in mind, and I told him so when I met him at a state-wide conference for social studies teachers.

So, I approached St. Patrick's Battalion with much hope. Instead of his usual quality, I found this book to be simplistic, with less detail and bent on beating two points home time after time: the Irish were treated brutally and shamefully by the U.S. army during the Mexican War and the Mexican War was an unjust war.

James Alexander Thom

Thom makes it clear in the opening dedication and acknowledgments that he is against the Iraq War and quite clearly he is drawing analogies between the two. However, Thom never really gets off of his twin focuses on the unjust war and the unjust treatment of the Irish. He never gets to his real strengths in his other books - bringing the reader into another world and teaching us about larger movements in history, but also about the day-to-day lives and goings on of our ancestors. Thom rarely gets beyond the superficial and develops the characters and that is a shame - and a loss to Thom's loyal readers because when his books are good they are fantastic.

Thom's format is the main cause of the failure of this book to be as excellent as his others. His chosen format is a diary of a 10-12 year old Irish-American boy (Quinn) with the U.S. Army and the remembrances of a Mexican man (Juvero)about his experiences during the war as a young boy 16 years later. The diary entries are the better of the two, but are often sketchy. The remembrances are very repetitive and full of Spanish phrases that must be annoying to readers who don't know any Spanish. He often comments about Manifest Destiny, the Irish and America's arrogance. It gets old - not that he wasn't right, but he made his point early and often - it's time to move on. I must admit that I started skimming his sections. I think that Juvero says it best on page 256: "Que Rollo! My preachings are a bore!"

So, to sum up: not his best work. I recommend you read any other Thom book before this one.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Saint Patrick's Battalion: A Novel by James Alexander Thom.

Reviewed on July 30, 2007 (edited June 24, 2012).

Warrior Woman: The Exceptional Life Story of Nonhelema, Shawnee Indian Woman Chief by James Alexander Thom and Dark Rain Thom

Not up the high standards that have been set by other books by James Alexander Thom

Published in 2003 by Ballantine Books

To start, let me establish my bonafides as a fan of Mr. Thom's work. Five of his novels proudly sit on my bookshelf. When I teach world history I have my kids read a piece of historical fiction as part of a semester project. I have proudly placed copies of Follow the River and Panther in the Sky in my classroom library as examples of historical fiction at its finest. I met Thom at a conference this past spring and told him that his books were the reason I created this type of project. When at his best, Thom's books make you feel as though you have stepped into that world of the past.

Warrior Woman, while accurate is just not entertaining reading. The plot meanders around and never seems to pick up steam. We never really understand Nonhelema's motives in the book - why is she so desperate to negotiate a peace when it is so obvious that those treaties will be broken? Perhaps if her early life had been explored in more detail. The reader is offered snippits of earlier times - past battles, a trip to New Orleans some twenty years earlier but we don't know how these things formed her Revolutionary War-era self.

George Rogers Clark 
(1752-1818)

Warrior Woman seems to be the capstone on the series he has written about the Ohio and Missouri River Valleys. He mentions the legendary "Welsh Indians" he writes about in The Children of First Man. George Rogers Clark, the star of Long Knife appears several times, as does Tecumseh who is the focus of Panther in the Sky. William Clark, who is featured in his two books about the Lewis and Clark expedition makes a cameo appearance. Kidnapped whites raised by Indians are featured prominently in The Red Heart and Follow the River. They are important in this book as well since Nonhelema's daughter is one of those kidnapped children who chooses to stay with the Shawnee. Even a young George Drouillard is mentioned twice in passing. He is featured in yet another book entitled. Sign-Talker: The Adventure of George Drouillard on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. To me, it seemed that Thom was closing the circle on his interpretation of this period of history.

Before you read this book, read any of the other ones I mentioned above.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Warrior Woman.

Reviewed on November 21, 2008.

Sign-Talker: The Adventure of George Drouillard on the Lewis and Clark Expedition by James Alexander Thom

An entertaining look at the Lewis and Clark adventure

Published in 2003.

Lewis and Clark's famous Voyage of Discovery lasted from 1803-1806. Besides Lewis and Clark there were a number of French trappers, Seaman (Lewis' dog) soldiers, frontier hunters, Clark's slave named York, Sacagawea and her son and George Drouillard, a half-French/half-Shawnee man brought along with the dual role of sign-language interpreter and hunter. Meriwether Lewis called Drouillard "One of the two or three most valuable members of the expedition..."

A memorial in Jefferson City, Mo. from left to right: 

York (sitting), Meriwether Lewis, Seaman the dog, 

William Clark, and George Drouillard (crouching)

In Sign-Talker, James Alexander Thom tells the story of Drouillard, focusing on his journey with Lewis and Clark. This book is James Alexander Thom at his descriptive best - the descriptions of camp life, hunting with Drouillard and the look into his presumed spiritual life gives the reader tremendous insight into what life may have been like 200 years ago.
However, this book is also infused with a streak of political correctness that will be sure to irritate most readers. Drouillard continually comments on the cultural insensitivity of Lewis and Clark - and to be sure, they brought more than their share of cultural bigotry to their dealings with the local native tribes as they traveled - but he never expects those local native tribes to be more open and tolerant of the ways of the white men in the Voyage of Discovery. Tolerance is not a one-way street.

Anyway, the PC streak did not detract much for me (although it is a sign of things to come with Thom's later books). The story is interesting, well told and I do recommend it.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Sign-Talker: The Adventure of George Drouillard on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Reviewed on June 24, 2011.

The Spirit of the Place: Indiana Hill Country by James Alexander Thom and Darryl Jones

A wonderful coffee table book that espouses the beauty of much-maligned Indiana

Photographer Darryl Jones and author James Alexander Thom teamed together to make a wonderful little book about the natural beauty of the southern Indiana hill country in The Spirit of the Place: Indiana Hill Country. Thom's text complements Jones' photographs wonderfully.

Indiana does not have mountain vistas or magnificent buttes or gigantic canyons that overwhelm the senses.  Being a native Hoosier, I have an appreciation for the subtle beauties of the state.  Jones does as well. Most of his pictures are taken in hilly Owen county. He captures every season, as well as forest, field, stream, farm, and town scenes.

James Alexander Thom

Thom's text is part biography and part stories he heard growing up in Owen County. If you are a fan on Thom's other works, this one will be a nice addition. If you've never heard of Thom, this is a great place to get to know him and his motivations as an author.

I give this book 5 stars out of a possible 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Spirit of the Place: Indiana Hill Country


Reviewed on April 12, 2006.

Spectator Sport by James Alexander Thom

One of James Alexander Thom's first published books - shows his potential and rookie problems.

Originally published in 1978.

James Alexander Thom is one of my favorite authors. In my classroom I have had two of his books on my shelves - when kids come to me looking for something to read I recommend those books first due to the power of the storytelling. Those that accept my recommendations concerning his books are never disappointed. Great stuff!

While most of his books concern the frontier days of America's old Northwest Territory (Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, etc.), Spectator Sport concerns itself with the rain-shortened and deadly 1973 Indy 500. The race took part over the course of 3 days and was finally called after a little more than 300 miles due to rain and the fact that only 9 of the 33 starters were still on the track. Thom was at the race and the events inspired him to write this book and explore the motivations of race fans, violence on television and the news and voyeurism of all sorts.

This book however does not qualify as great - it is too up and down and inconsistent.

First - what is done well:

-Thom accurately portrays the way the 'Snake Pit' of the Indy 500 used to be - the dirt, the beer, the hedonism.

James Alexander Thom

-Thom accurately captures the feel of the 500 just before the race starts. The tension, the anticipation, the pomp and ritual.

-Thom's descriptions of the Speedway and its environs are dead-on. Especially the traffic and the insanity of the some of the police who are directing it.

What does not work so well:

-Too many characters - especially the boy from Kokomo who has to see the race no matter what. The girls who break out from the Indiana Girls' School (Indiana's prison for teenaged girls) and party in the infield are interesting but also fail to advance the story.

-Thom's theme is that sex, violence and power are all inter-related. The fighter pilot war hero and the soft-porn movie starlet, and the 500 festival princess who poses naked for the camera are all supposed to tie in with the race and the mayhem that occurred on the track, in the stands (debris and fuel were sprayed all over one section of the stands) and in the infield. However, I thought that Thom failed to connect all of these dots and the story gets too off-target. Too many themes means that he hits none of them well. It would have been better to have made two books - one exploring the violence of auto racing and the motivations of the racers and the fans, the other exploring sexuality, power and fidelity.

Fans of the 500 will appreciate:

-Transcripts of the race thrown into the text to tell the reader how far along the race is. These are actually transcribed from "The Voice of the 500" Sid Collins' personal tapes and include ads, Sid Collins and other local (Indy area) broadcasters such as Mike Ahern.

-Local sites such as the Indiana Girls' School, The Coke Lot, The Snake Pit and a local west side bakery that just has to be Long's Bakery.

Bottom line: The book has lots of faults, shows his great promise as an author but really does not quite deliver. Hardcore fans of the Indy 500 will certainly appreciate it.

**On a different note, why do they use a modern era Indy Car on the cover photo on the October 2000 reprint rather than a car from the 1973 race?

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Spectator Sport

Reviewed on January 4, 2006.

The Red Heart by James Alexander Thom

This is one great book.

Originally published in 1997.

The Red Heart is based on the true story of Francis Slocum, a 4 year old Quaker girl who was kidnapped by Delaware Indians in the 1770s on the Pennsylvania frontier near Wilkes-Barre. (There are recreation areas named for her in both Pennsylvania and Indiana)

A painting of Francis Slocum
that is part of the collection
at the Indiana State Museum

It is also the story of her family's 60 year search for her across the Midwest and even into Canada.

It is also the story of the relentless westward movement of the Americans and how the Indians dealt with it.

The reader also gets a fantastic lesson on daily life among the Delaware and Miami Indians.

If you're a Star Trek: The Next Generation fan you'll remember the episode entitled "Inner Light" in which Picard is "attacked" by the alien probe from the long-dead world that makes him live an entire lifetime among their people in his mind in just a few seconds so that their way of life will never be forgotten. (It's the one where he learns to play the little flute-type instrument). Well, this book reminds me of that - you are drawn into this woman's life and initiated into Indian culture as she is. You learn along with her. You grow up with her, feel her disappointments and joys and her confusions as she learns that her white family is searching for her (should she seek them? should she run? Would it be best to take advantage of her white skin and abandon her Indian family as the times get harder and harder?)

I have a few quibbles with the book but those are dwarfed by Thom's overall accomplishment. Honestly, at the end of the book, when Francis Slocum dies, I felt as though a longtime friend who'd lived a wonderful and fulfilling life had died - and that is the greatest compliment I think I can give it.

Bravo!

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Red Heart.

Reviewed in 2004.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 stars.