The book is a day-by-day account of six months spent in the middle of nowhere on the banks of the Niobrara River in the Sandhill country of Nebraska. Nothing happens…but life. The roof leaks, winter hangs on too long, the grass needs mowing, the grasshoppers devour the kitchen garden, shopping trips to Chadron are iffy in the old wreck he drives…. Modest, matter of fact, impossibly romantic, hyper-realistic at times, and every word a labor of love.
This book is one man’s tribute to a woman he never met, she being Mari Sandoz (1896-1966). If you do not know Mari Sandoz, perhaps now is the time to make her acquaintance.
She was a writer and her titles include: ‘Old Jules,’ ‘Cheyenne Autumn,’ ‘They were the Sioux,’ ‘The Story Catcher,’ and ‘Sandhills Sundays.’ She was a lifelong proponent of the rights of the native American Indian, long before it was a fashion for celebrities to take up photo op causes. Wilkinson aims to write a book about her.
Wilkinson’s reasoning, Mr Spock, is that to write about Sandoz he would understand her better for knowing the environs that formed her, namely the Nebraska Sandhills.
Though the book takes the form of diary entries and is very chatty, it is at the same time more formal than many books I have read. (I suppressed a comparison here on the grounds that these reviews are always positive.) By ‘formal,’ in this case, I mean careful to give a full exposition so that the reader can understand.
Alan has visited parts of the United States many times but Nebraska is it, first Willa Cather and then Mari Sandoz. He has even been to Hastings and is proud of it! This is a man who knows quality.
Much as I enjoyed reading the book I was surprised he did not mention James G Niehardt who is surely the poet laureate of the Niobrara. Or did I blink and miss it? Nor does he say anything about the Indians that so dominated Sandoz’s imagination, but some are still around there. Though he went to Chadron several times he did not go on another hour to Alliance to see Carhenge! That is hard to believe. But then Carhenge is hard to believe, but I have seen it with my own four eyes.
Wilkinson says he does not like Sandoz’s novels but I have good memories of her ‘Cheyenne Autumn’ and ‘The Story Catcher.’ Memories which for the moment I will leave undisturbed.
Alan Wilkinson
Skip to content