Lone Women by Victor LaValle
Blue skies, empty land—and enough wide-open space to hide a horrifying secret. A woman with a past, a mysterious trunk, a town on the edge of nowhere, and an “absorbing, powerful” ( BuzzFeed ) new vision of the American West, from the award-winning author of The Changeling .
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.
The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.
Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.
Review:
I know I mentioned a few episodes ago that it takes a lot for a book to scare me, or even creep me out. Such was the case with this book – it didn’t scare me at all, nor did I find it very tense, but I did find it VERY entertaining and superbly atmospheric.
When the book begins, Adelaide is pouring kerosene on her family’s home in California. The mangled bodies of her parents lie in their bed. She sets the house ablaze, packs up a very heavy trunk and is on her way to catch a boat that will take her to Seattle to catch a train that will then take her to Wyoming – far away from California and whatever terrible thing happened there. We, as readers, are unsure if Adelaide murdered her parents, or if something else did, and if maybe that something else is hidden in the trunk.
She makes it to Montana where she is taken from the train station to the land that she purchased. A local man takes her and a single mother and her three blind sons to their homesteads. On the way, they get sidetracked and end up needing to spend the night at an abandoned hotel. When the woman and her three boys are nowhere to be found the following day, Adelaide worries that her dark secret may be at fault.
Adelaide eventually settles into her new home, but one evening she awakens to find that a gentleman caller has opened her trunk and is gravely injured. She manages to save him and send him back to town, and she does her best to hide away the thing that lives in the trunk, but when it escapes one evening Adelaide worries that the entire town may be in danger – and as her deep, dark secret is now roaming free, she fears it may grows stronger until she can no longer keep it under control.
One thing that I really liked about the book was the way the author described the setting. The wind was always howling, and I could feel it. I grew up in Idaho which isn’t far from Montana, so I’m no stranger to a constant wind. I can’t remember ever being outside where there wasn’t at least a slight breeze blowing.
I also loved the characters – there were times when you weren’t really sure who the villain was. Adelaide’s “monster” is scary, but there are a few townsfolk who are just as evil.
I especially loved that it was Adelaide along with the only other Black woman and a Chinese woman who basically had to stand up and fight for (and sometimes against) the white settlers just to stay alive.
It’s difficult to talk about the book without giving much away. While it wasn’t scary to me, it was a wild ride and lots of fun to read. It’s well written, and one I would recommend to someone who likes a darker, unconventional story.
