lewis and clark

I just received this note from a reader:

My wife and I traveled through western Montana this summer and just happened to stop at the Big Hole National Monument. The ranger on duty recommended your book, “Chief Joseph & the Flight of the Nez Perce”.

I’m halfway through the book and loving the book. I’m disappointed with the treatment of the Nez Perce, but your writing brings the events to life. Great job!

I hear this comment often from readers.  Many of the sites on the Nez Perce trail recommend my book as the one to read, because I wrote it as a ground level experience for the reader with a sympathy for all participants on all sides.  I wanted you to be there as the events unfolded, not watching from some historical perspective.

It took me four years to do that book, and it was the loneliest literary journey of my life.  But in many ways it was the most rewarding.  It reveals the shadow side of the journey of Lewis and Clark and offers a look into one of the most poignant stories of American expansion into the west.  It changed me forever.

It may not seem like a subject that intrigues you.  But I urge you to overcome your resistance.  The Nez Perce are a people quite unlike any other tribe you may have experienced.  And their story and the story of their tragic flight are at the core of our American historical narrative.

If you liked the way the story was told in Neither Wolf nor Dog, The Wolf at Twilight, and The Girl who Sang to the Buffalo, you will find Chief Joseph and the Flight of the Nez Perce well worth your while.  I hope you will pick it up.