Impatient with Desire

I would not normally have chosen Impatient with Desire as a read. The cover is a bit prairie romance novel and the subject, the imagined journal of the wife of the leader of the Donner party, doesn't sound all that appetizing. I was invited to review this book by Rare Bird Lit and I am so very glad, otherwise I would've missed a great book.

Impatient with Desire is lots of things. It's epistolary. It's riveting. It's filled with dread and wonder and regret. It's a beautifully written impressionistic sort of novel that isn't really concerned about timelines or an A to Z path to telling its stories. Much like a real journal it is memories and thoughts and what if's.

Ms. Burton manages to instill a vague sense of dread throughout the book. show more Part of this is that we all know the end, but part of it is the way Ms. Burton drops facts and skitters about the reality forcing the reader to fill in the blanks. This book truly grabbed me within the first few pages and the list of Donner Party members - the number of children ruffled the hairs on the back of my neck. An unforgettable moment in reading so simply presented - this is the essence of this book and I loved it. show less

This novel has such a strong voice, the one of Tamsen Donner of the ill-fated Donner Party. From the opening paragraph I was captured and lead into the wilderness with Tamsen and her family. A tragic story that is well known in American History, a story that has bred all manner of bad taste jokes, has been given a fresh perspective by the author and her excellent writing. Ms. Burton clearly spent a great deal of time researching and developing her characters.She definitely immersed herself in their plight for this comes across clearly on the pages of the book. Yes, this is a fictionalized account of the Donner Party and their entrapment in the mountains but every word rings true. Heartbreakingly realistic.

All American schoolchildren probably learn about the Donner Party. While not an incredibly significant event in American westward expansion, the story of the families emigrating to California who become trapped in the Sierra Nevada mountains and struggle to survive — some even resorting to cannibalism — captures our imaginations as much today as it did when it happened. In Impatient with Desire — an unfortunate title that evokes a lurid romance more than a serious work of historical fiction — Burton attempts to give a voice to one of the people who perished in that ordeal: Tamsen Donner, wife of the expedition’s leader, George Donner.

The story is told in the form of Tamsen’s imaginary diary entries and letters to her sister. show more This choice is a good one because it allows Tamsen to recollect important events from her past, shedding light on her character and breaking up what would otherwise be a bleak narrative of four months of misery and starvation. As Tamsen deteriorates, her journal entries become more disjointed and rambling, helping the reader experience her state of mind. The only problem with this narrative structure is that it is sometimes repetitive, and it can be difficult to keep track of when certain key events happened.

Tamsen is a fascinating character, a woman ahead of her time. She is portrayed as an adventurer at heart who found a soulmate in her second husband George. She had a strong desire to experience the world and often chafed against the societal restrictions placed on women in her time. She also regarded her family’s move westward as her chance to participate in history and help shape what her young country would become. She wholeheartedly believed in Manifest Destiny. This goes a long way toward explaining why she would bring her five young children along on such a treacherous journey.

Unfortunately, the other characters outside the immediate Donner family aren’t as well-drawn as Tamsen, and it is often difficult to keep them all straight, especially in this non-linear narrative. Still, the story is told in Tamsen’s voice, and perhaps even she didn’t know her fellow travelers very well. I was most interested in whether she felt she had made a mistake in heading West and putting her children through an unimaginable ordeal. While Tamsen does ruminate on some of the party’s mistakes — taking the disastrous shortcut that led to their being trapped, for one — she never seems to regret her decisions. Up to the end, she manages to take pride in their adventure and her conviction that they are leading others west in a great mission to form a new land, despite their expedition’s failures. I’m not certain I would have felt the same way, or that I would have chosen to stay behind with my husband instead of seeing my children to safety, but a great part of our fascination with this story is wondering why these people made the choices they did and imagining what we would have done in their place. Burton does a good job of bringing Tamsen Donner to life in this novel, and helping us understand her a bit better. show less

For a very long time, I have been fascinated by the story of the Donner Party, so I was absolutely thrilled to receive Impatient with Desire. Once I had it in my hands and realized it was billed, at least in part, as a romance, however, my hopes for a fictionalized narrative focussed on the perils and sheer horror of their situation plummeted, and it was with no small reluctance that I began to read.

My fears were entirely ungrounded.

This was the sort of book I was completely unable to put down. It is a romance, in that it is the compelling story of Tamsen and George Donner, from their courtship and decision to move West, their hope for a new, better life, to their fates in the cold, unforgiving Sierra Nevada Mountains. But it is also show more simply a human story of challenge, struggle, and what one must do to survive in the most horrific of situations. It is impressively realistic, so much so that I think it is worth noting that this is a fictionalized account, one in which some historical characters have been folded together and/or renamed to serve the narrative, creating an impressively dramatic and gripping narrative that is nevertheless based on, not wholly faithful to every single detail of the Donner Party's struggle. I note this primarily because it was so very easy to believe the whole story played out exactly like this, which is an impressive feat on Burton's part.

Even though the events themselves are set in stone, Burton crafts a tale in which the reader is gripped tight and hopes against hope that the inevitable will not happen. Those final months, while the settlers are increasingly growing weaker, sicker and less able to fight and survive, are presented in the novel with an adept hand that simply increases the sense of claustrophobia and darkness descending on them all. Tamsen's voice in each of her letters and diary entries is strong, completely compelling, and entirely perfect.

I admit it, I found myself with tears in my eyes at the conclusion of the novel, as well as an inability to shake the story from my consciousness for days afterward, both of which caught me completely off guard. After my initial misgivings, Impatient with Desire turned out to be an excellent surprise, skillfully executed and chillingly fascinating. show less

Don’t let the romantic sounding title and flowers on the cover fool you, “Impatient with Desire” is a grim and chilling story of survival. The story is a fictionalized retelling of the infamous Donner Party expedition from the perspective of Tamsen Donner. Tamson is the wife of George Donner, the expedition captain, and mother/stepmother to 5 children, most of whom are very young. The title refers the settlers being “impatient with desire” to go west to California, despite the dangers and extreme conditions.

Reading this book, I was already aware of the outcome (as I’m sure many potential readers are) but that did not lessen the impact. Ms. Burton has crafted a beautifully written story, detailing the experience at the camp show more where they are stranded in the mountains, as well as the lead up to that point. This includes both the expedition across the west and the Donners’ lives before. The author provides many details about what life was like in that era, and also succeeds in showing the mindset of Donners and other settlers in their party, as to why they would undertake this dangerous journey.

Tamsen is a strong character, who is ahead of her time in terms of education and views. The author has done extensive research on Tamsen Donner and it is likely that this fictionalization is mostly accurate. However, as the story is told from Tamsen’s point of view, I think that the author uses the “unreliable narrator” device in several places. It is apparent that Tamsen is struggling with keeping her family together and sane. Is she really writing the whole story down? It is left up to the reader to interpret those hints.

“Impatient with Desire” is a heartbreaking story that puts a very human face on the events from the Donner Party expedition. Highly recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction. show less

Everyone wants to know all the gory details about the Donner party; who got eaten, who participated in the cannibalism, and what it was like. If the Donner party had simply perished, gotten trapped by snow and all died, would they be as famous? Or infamous? Probably not.

What I enjoyed about Gabriel Burton's retelling on the Donner tale, told from the point of view of Tamsen Donner, was the straightforward, no nonsense way the details were presented. The eventual and unfortunate cannibalism wasn't dwelt on any more than any of the other horrors of their snow-bound isolation. Eating the hides that once comprised their covered wagons and tents, living in tiny, makeshift shelters ripe with the smell of unwashed and sickly bodies, trying show more not to go mad and remain hopeful, coping with the various problems of your fellow travelers, along with trying to hold a family together both physically and emotionally; these were all things Tamsen had to deal with, along with the deaths of their companions. Cannibalism was just another awful chapter in their story.

Burton's prose is elegantly restrained, but doesn't skimp on details. Tamsen's voice is clear and honest, direct and at times heartbreaking. The travails that many early Western settlers faced were awful enough, without being stranded in the mountains in the winter with no food and a raft of dead comrades. I liked this book a lot; it made me think about all the pioneers of America, and gave a much more human voice to the ever-popular, commonly cartoonish view of the Donner party. show less

At first glance, Impatient with Desire appears to be a romance, at least judging from its cover. However, its tranquil and pleasant demeanor belies the contents within.

The focus of this book is the plight of the infamous Donner Party. Long heralded as perhaps the most lurid example of American cannibalism, the episode of the Donner Party has lodged in history's craw in a way that rivals any other single event in the era of the Westward-bound wagon trains. Today the story maintains a cult following, many of whom overlook the most important part of the story -- how it affected the individuals within the party.

In this book, Gabrielle Burton turns our head to look at this part of the story, the part that is much more difficult to keep in show more our sight. She does this through the voice of Tamsen Donner, as given in journal entries and letters written to her sister and never mailed. While crafted by Burton for the book, these entries and missives speak from Burton's absorption of Tamsen's history through a variety of sources and over a span of many years.

What I found remarkable about this book was the fact that I forgot I was reading it. Tamsen speaks through the pages to the reader, and before long the reader feels as though they know her. She confides her frustrations to us, her recollections of the journey that landed them behind winter's unforgiving door, shutting them in their unwanted mountain holdfast. We glimpse the character of her companions, the character of her own self and that of her husband, George, and the fresh-formed faces of their five daughters.

We hear the hints of unrest among the eighty pioneers that started out together to make a new start on the west coast. Bit by bit, the events that formed the smaller group that found themselves stranded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains are laid out before us, as recorded by Tamsen, gathering her recollections as the supplies dwindle and the winter lengthens.

What kept me coming back to the book, in spite of the ostensibly melancholy and desperate nature of the tale, is the grace and honesty with which Tamsen's voice tells it, with every ounce of her lively sensibilities.

While the wretched state of the residents of the camp is present and unavoidable, even in the face of ruin there remain sprinkled throughout crystal-clear moments of hope and joy, a testament to the spirit that drove the Donners to undertake the journey in the first place. There is humility and respect for humans in their direst states. There is an acquiescence in the face of unavoidable facts and in the face of choices that must be made in a worst case scenario. There is a refusal to give up without doing what is best and right for the people whose well-being one finds oneself responsible for.

All this rings through Tamsen's narrative, in her honest questions of herself, and in the transparency of the events as they unfold against the starkness of their winter siege. I found myself asking myself what I would do if I found myself in her place. I also found myself glad to know her, and glad to have read this book. show less