Promotional Information

Recovers one woman's compelling history through a modern-day family's adventures into realms of ultimately timeless experiences

Table of Contents

[no TOC; 48 numbered chapters]

About the Author

Gabrielle Burton (1939–2015) was a writer whose numerous projects include the film Manna from Heaven, which she wrote and produced, and the novel Heartbreak Hotel, which won Scribner’s 1985 Maxwell Perkins Prize, an award for a first work of fiction. She authored a novel she imagined as Tamsen Donner's journal, Impatient with Desire: The Lost Journal of Tamsen Donner. Burton's writing has also appeared in publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Reviews

"An extraordinary 'must-read' memoir... An unforgettable feminist family-on-the-road saga the likes of which I've never read before." Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air "As dramatic and tragic as the story of the Donner Party is, it shares space here with the tender reflections of a mother of five daughters --daughters whose filial companionship on a summer road trip long ago bespoke a very different kind of family journey across the American West." William Deverell, Los Angeles Times Book Review "A moving exploration of a legendary American woman through the eyes of a modern heroine." Barbara Smith, Feminist Review