It has taken me a long time to finish this book, but this review comes with the highest recommendation. The book was authored by Brian Hall and is called "I Should Be Extremely Happy in Your Company". WOW about sums it up!
This was a novel which took an important historical adventure and filled in the holes (speculating of course) spending considerable time on how each of the main characters saw things on this journey. I'm sure you've heard of Lewis & Clark? A young indian girl named Sakagewea? The Corps of Discovery? First recorded trip west across the U.S.? Here's a map of their path:
This book focused closely on the lives and adventures of Meriweather Lewis, right hand man of President Thomas Jefferson, his former lieutenant in the army, William Clark, and their crew including a French man by the name of Charbonneau and his wife, Sakagewea and their child.
The reason why it took me so long to make it through this book is the change in each chapter where it jumped from Lewis' view, to Sakagewea's view, to Charbonneau's view, to Clark's view of things. Of course, being that Indian to English translation was a fairly new thing "back then", the Indian english I read in the book was difficult to follow - nevertheless excellently done!
I really enjoyed this book; it was a change from my usually easy to read mystery and suspense novels. There was only one thing that I didn't like and it probably wouldn't bother most people, but 1) I don't like it, 2) I can't imagine that these words were this often used "back then". Words such as I can't say because they'll make me blush!
Anyways, I still highly recommend it and give it five stars! If you read it, let me know what you thought.
