Sandra Dallas

Addie meets Emma on a train going to New Mexico. Emma is going to become a mail order bride. Addie is a madam, although she pretends to Emma that she is a refined lady. Emma's marriage fall through and she ends up at Addie's "boardinghouse" or what she thinks is a boardinghouse. Addie is tired of Emma after several weeks of her staying there. It's bad for business, so Addie gets her lover, Ned to take her out for a ride. Ned and Emma hatch a plan to rob a bank. Not everyone is in favor of this plan, but Ned and Emma agree to split the money with Addie and her housemaid, Welcome. On the day of the robbery things do not go as planned. By the end of book, everything you thought you knew is different than your thoughts at the beginning of the book. If you enjoy stories of the old west and outlaws you will enjoy this story.… (mer)

First sentence: A ragged curtain snapped against the broken glass of the window in the old shack, which had begun to list. Its boards, the paint scraped off by the wind and sand, were a splintery gray. The door sagged open, its white china knob cracked and yellowed.

Premise/plot: Are you looking for a book completely devoid of hope and joy? Are you looking for a book where women [and children] are oppressed on every single page? Did you find Romeo and Juliet too cheerful? If you want the 'one ring to rule them all' of bleakness, then Where Coyotes Howl might be a good fit for you.

The premise is simple enough, Ellen Webster, goes to Wyoming as a school teacher in 1916. She meets and falls head over heels in love with a cowboy, Charlie Bacon. They marry. Life goes downhill after the 'I do's.' Not because they stop loving each other madly. No, because of situations and circumstances. Ellen experiences many tough situations, no doubt, but she witnesses a thousand times worse in the community.

My thoughts: Is this one realistic? Pioneer stories can be ROUGH. It isn't that I went into this one expecting it to be cheery-happy-lovely-cozy-warm-fuzzy. But personally, I think a chain of hope OR a strong resilience [or both] could make a difference in perspective.

The overwhelming message seems to be that without agency, a woman cannot hope to have even a 1% chance at happiness. Men will abuse, misuse, manipulate. Even if you find the one in a million husband that will be tender and loving and supportive, you still can't be happy because you inevitably will suffer. Without birth control, you are doomed to SUFFER. This one seems very, very, very heavy-handedly pro-choice. The message seems to be that women need full and total control over their own bodies and their lives. A secondary message seems to be that it would be better to be a prostitute than a wife. [Some characters, though not Ellen, have been both. Husbands make life HELL on earth 99.2% of the time.]

Mental health. Every single character needs help or intervention. Of course, there's no help to be had. Again, embracing the abandon all hope philosophy.

This one needs LOTS of trigger warnings.

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Spousal abuse--verbal, physical, mental, sexual. Child abuse. Miscarriages. Murder. Suicide. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death. Death.… (mer)

It took me a while to get into the writing style - it is where one sister (Alice) writes letters to her sister Lizzie. Some of it is a little forced (reminding her sister as to how many brothers they've got for instance) in order to get the back story in, but it's minor and soon got over.

The letters are one sided (you never get to read the replies) and tells of two years on a farm with Alice, her mother in law and various waifs and strays, all whilst Charlie is off fighting in the Civil war.

Alice tries to bear the unwanted attention of a local womaniser, but never contemplated that she would be accused when he turned up dead on their land. There are also diversion in some of the other women in the town (you hear little of the men).

Once I got past the slightly unusual format, I enjoyed reading this book!… (mer)

3.5***

Dallas returns to the issue of internment camps where US residents of Japanese heritage were interred during World War II. Her previous novel, Tallgrass was an adult book, told from the perspective of the townsfolk near where the camp is located. In this novel, suitable for middle-school children, she focuses on one Japanese-American family and their experiences inside the camp.

Tomi Itano is the middle child and only girl in her family. She’s a good student and has heard the news of Pearl Harbor. Still, when “No Japs allowed” signs begin appearing in local stores she’s taken aback. Then her family is forced to leave the strawberry farm they’ve worked so hard to make successful to be moved first to a horse barn at a race track and finally to the camp known as Tallgrass, near Ellis, Colorado.

Dallas deals well with this episode of USA’s history. She explores how the knee-jerk reactions of politicians and a scared populace resulted in the imprisonment of many completely innocent people of Japanese heritage. She shows how ill-equipped the camps were for the influx of residents, and details the efforts made by the Japanese-Americans to improve the conditions, and form their own governing groups within the camps. I liked how she showed the different attitudes and coping mechanisms that people employed. Some despaired, while others overcame their fears and uncertainties to become leaders. Some used humor, while others channeled their anger and outrage into positive action. Some held themselves apart, while others joined the community to make the best of a terrible situation.… (mer)