Indifferent Stars Above : The Harrowing Saga Of A Donner Party Bride

This is the second recent history (the first was Desperate Passage) about the ill-fated Donner Party. Brown's book is focused on the experiences of a young woman and her personal ordeal in the Sierra Nevada mountains during the winter of 1846/7. Both books stand as testaments to the human spirit and the determination to persevere against almost insurmountable odds. Brown puts faces on the people who lived and perished in the nightmare and, like the countless numbers who came before and after, managed to endure and flourish.

“Brown draws from the many previously published accounts of the tragedy, letters from the party and those who knew them, accounts of life on the Oregon and California trails, genealogical databases, and his own travel along the trail…but he tells the tale with a novelist’s touch.”

“Daniel James Brown brings the myth to life, transforming faint history class memories into gripping reality.”

“A compelling retelling of the ghastly events surrounding the Donner party. Daniel James Brown, using one survivor’s experience as his focus, moves beyond the cardboard figures depicted in previous accounts and shows how the lucky few endured and survived.”

“In this gripping narrative, Brown reveals the extremes of endurance that underlie the history of this nation, and more than that, of humanity in any part of the world, even today, surviving great peril in search of a better life.”

“A skillful, suspenseful study of the Donner Party, narrated from the point of view of a newly married woman…Wading through the many previous accounts of the ill-fated journey, Brown creates a thorough and unique narrative. A moving man-against-nature tragedy that stillresonates today.”

Distributor: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication Date: 04-28-2009
Pages: 352
Measurements: 9in X 6in X 1.14695in X 18.40oz