English language
Published Dec. 21, 2023 by Random House Publishing Group.
Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an “absorbing, powerful” (BuzzFeed) new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling.
“Propulsive . . . LaValle combines chills with deep insights into our country’s divides.”—Los Angeles Times
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2023: The New York Times, Time, Oprah Daily, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Essence, Salon, Vulture, Reader’s Digest, The Root, LitHub, Paste, PopSugar, Chicago Review of Books, BookPage, Book Riot, Tordotcom, Crime Reads, Kirkus Reviews
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.
The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California …
Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an “absorbing, powerful” (BuzzFeed) new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling.
“Propulsive . . . LaValle combines chills with deep insights into our country’s divides.”—Los Angeles Times
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2023: The New York Times, Time, Oprah Daily, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Essence, Salon, Vulture, Reader’s Digest, The Root, LitHub, Paste, PopSugar, Chicago Review of Books, BookPage, Book Riot, Tordotcom, Crime Reads, Kirkus Reviews
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.
The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.
Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.
Content warning discuto la conclusión!
La premisa: una mujer viajando sóla, en la época de la colonización gringa, mudándose a la mitad de la nada, huyendo de la violencia. A mí no me capturó, los personajes me parecieron caricaturescos. La historia tiene giros interesantes, pero realmente muchas veces parece que la violencia es exagerada y que el autor no comprende las realidades de los personajes que se inventó.
Fand das Hörbuch zufällig in vöbb/Libby und kann es wärmstens empfehlen.
(Werde meta bleiben weil ich finde, dass jede Inhaltsangabe schon einiges spoilert. Da waren allerdings auch Wendungen drin, die ich nicht erwartet hätte, Hut ab.)
Endlich ein Western der spannend ist, Horror Elemente enthält, in allen Hauptrollen Frauen hat und ohne sexualisierte Gewalt auskommt. Dazu kommt noch ein guter Schuß queere Repräsentation, Women of Color als Protagonistinnen und was mich freut: Gesellschaftskritik, die nicht mit dem Holzhammer kommt. Fand es richtig gut gemacht, größtenteils spannend und auch das Ende glücklicherweise sehr anders als ich es erwartet hätte. Oh und es ist auch immmerhin nicht purer Settler-Kolonialismus, which is nice.
Eine der letzten Plot-Linien hätte ich gerne weiter ausgeführt gehabt, aber das passt schon so.
Content-Hinweis allerdings für einiges an Gewalt (auch gegen Frauen weil naja, Western), Rassismus und Lynchjustiz.
For more than a million people, the American West was a place to disappear, to start over, to find independence. The Homestead Acts offered land in exchange for labor; if you could successfully farm the land and pay the fees, you’d receive 160 acres of land from the US government. Adelaide Henry is banking on both of those things when a horrific disaster sends her running from her family’s farm in California. Lone Women, by Victor LaValle, tells Adelaide’s harrowing tale of survival in the brutal lands of early-Twentieth century Montana. Not only does she have to contend with never-ending wind, dirt, hunger, and racism, Adelaide also has to fight for her life against a murderous family and her deadly family secret...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.
