Wild West | Seattle Book Mama

Sunrise is just the sort of bizarre yet brilliant novel I’ve come to expect from author Tea Obreht. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Our protagonist is Nina, a nanny on vacation with her boyfriend, Ben. Ben was the pilot of the plane flying over the Northern Rockies; Nina bailed, and Ben is nowhere in evidence. She’s landed in a river, and is remarkably free of major injuries, but she’s cold, scared, and alone. There’s no search and rescue within hearing or sight, so she knows it’s up to her to reach help.

Friends, it’s gonna take a long time.

The book is divided into 5 sections. The first is described above; the next three feature earlier residents of Sunrise, the ghost town Nina eventually reaches; and the last circles back to Nina. The sections are tied together at the end, but not in the way any other author would do it.

The first section feels tedious at times, limited as it is to Nina’s internal monologue. She walks, she rests, and she spends a good deal of time deciding whether she’s hungry enough to allow herself one of the handful of protein bars she possesses. How many days is this going to take? She has no idea. As Nina trudges, she ruminates, and in doing so, we gain more knowledge of her past and her relationship with Ben. Had this been any other author, I might have abandoned the whole thing; reader, I am very glad that I persevered, because the last ten percent of this book makes it completely worth it!

This is the third of this author’s books that I’ve read. The first was Inland, which remains one of my favorite galleys to date. The second, The Morningside, is not as powerful as the other two, including this one, but it’s still well worth reading. Sunrise, however, is the first one that’s made me stand up and cheer.

Those that have the patience for unconventional plots, and that appreciate a protagonist that’s full of surprises and badass feminist moxie, will have a hard time finding a more satisfying novel. Highly recommended!

Kate Elder, better known as Big Nose Kate, was a colorful character in the mercurial Wild West. Together with her paramour—possibly her husband—Doc Holliday, she shot, swindled and burned her way through Kansas, New Mexico, Texas and other parts of the American Southwest. My thanks go to Net Galley and Two Dot Publishing for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Enss is a capable writer, and I enjoy seeing women about whom little has been written brought to the foreground. Enss amassed a fair amount of material on her subject, but some of it was contradictory, and the greatest contradictor of all was Kate herself, who decided to tell her own life story when she was too old to recall everything properly. Enss tells the reader in the title and introduction that she is telling Kate’s story from the subject’s point of view, and she adds numerous footnotes explaining conflicting information throughout the narrative.

I read things I had never known before about this time and place, and general historical knowledge is where Enss shines best. For example, a ‘soiled dove’ was allowed to own real estate, whereas married women of the time were not. There were a number of financial advantages to owning a house of ill repute. Kate grew up in a middle class household and was not without choices, but she didn’t care to be married off in the way her family had proposed. In the end she was both a shrewd businesswoman and an adrenaline junkie, one that made a point of having at least one loaded gun handy when a situation called for it. I enjoyed reading about it.

Unfortunately there is a lot of conflicting information and the gaps in the story are numerous. Anytime I start seeing the words “might,” “must have, “ “likely” and so forth, I pull back from the narrative. I can’t get lost in a story when I have to mentally filter the things that are known to have happened from the things nobody knows for sure. I think Enss has done as good a job as could be done with the documentation available, but Kate is a hard nut to crack.

What I would love to see is historical fiction written with Kate as the protagonist, viewed through the eyes of a feminist writer such as Enss. With historical fiction one can freely fill in the gaps, provide dialogue, and make notes at the end of the story letting the reader know what she has invented or changed.

Those with a special interest may want to read this biography, but I see it largely as a niche read.