Third Place Books is thrilled to welcome critically acclaimed author Susanna Moore to our Ravenna store! Moore will be discussing her new novel, The Lost Wife, drawing partly from a true story, it brings to life a devastating Native American revolt and the woman caught in the middle of the conflict. Moore will be joined in conversation by Kristianne Huntsberger of Shelf Awareness. This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required in advance.
This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!
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In the summer of 1855, Sarah Brinton abandons her husband and child to make the long and difficult journey from Rhode Island to Minnesota Territory, where she plans to reunite with a childhood friend. When she arrives at a small frontier post on the edge of the prairie without family or friends and with no prospect of work or money, she quickly remarries and has two children. Anticipating unease and hardship at the Indian Agency, where her husband Dr. John Brinton is the new resident physician, Sarah instead finds acceptance and kinship among the Sioux women at a nearby reservation.
The Sioux tribes, however, are wary of the white settlers and resent the rampant theft of their land. Promised payments by the federal government are never made, and starvation and disease soon begin to decimate their community. Tragically and inevitably, this leads to the Sioux Uprising of 1862. During the conflict, Sarah and her children are abducted by the Sioux, who protect her, but because she sympathizes with her captors, Sarah becomes an outcast to the white settlers. In the end, she is lost to both worlds. Intimate and raw, The Lost Wife is a brilliantly subversive tale of the conquest of the American West.
"You would be hard-pressed to find a more opulent, elegant writer of career excellence than Moore. Stunning."
—Wes Minter, Third Place Books
“Moore (In the Cut) returns with a bracing and daring account of a woman who tries to build a new life on the American frontier. . . . This is a masterwork of Americana.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Based partly on a woman’s account of her abduction along with her children during the Sioux Uprising in 1862, Moore’s novel is a tense, absorbing tale of adversity and survival. . . . Moore has imagined a brave, perceptive woman with no illusions about the hypocrisy of those who proclaim themselves civilized. . . . A devastating tale rendered with restrained serenity.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“A stirring portrait of the American West. . . . [The Lost Wife] captures . . . the lost wives and lost souls whose illusions had carried them to a vaunted frontier whose promise had become saturated in blood . . . Moore’s steely vision of the American West recognizes few, if any, heroes. The result is a repudiation—solemn yet stirring—of the idealized fable of the American West.”
—The Washington Post
"Moore is often called a “cult” writer. I find her to be one of the most compelling novelists alive. . . . [The Lost Wife is] concise and brutally incisive. . . . As ever, Susanna Moore is unflinching.”
—Stephanie Danler, Air Mail, “Susanna Moore Isn’t Done Running Away”
Susanna Moore is the author of seven novels and three works of nonfiction, all of them written with an elegance and a lucid precision that seems to sit almost at odds with the expansive themes of her work. Her first three novels – My Old Sweetheart, The Whiteness of Bones and Sleeping Beauties – are set in the Hawaii that Moore grew up in. In the Cut, her 4th novel, was a departure – a violent psychological thriller set in New York and later made into a Jane Campion film starring Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo.
Kristianne Huntsberger is the Partnership Program Manager at Shelf Awareness, working with Indie Booksellers all over the country. A storyteller by training, Kristianne writes, performs and conducts story slant workshops for which she’s received grants from 4 Culture and Seattle Arts and Culture. Her bookshelves are full of travel narratives, off-kilter fiction and fairytales. When she's not traipsing about in far-flung corners of the world, she walks wide circles around town to discover strange landmarks in familiar places and record them.
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