A Sudden Country

By Karen Fisher

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A story of survival, A Sudden Country is a fictionalized chronicle of real events on the 1847 Oregon migration. Former Hudson’s Bay trader James MacLaren, travelling alone, mourns the loss of his children to smallpox and of his wife to another man. He’s collected a few tattered remnants of his life but doubts his soul will ever mend. Lucy Mitchell has also suffered a loss – widowed with children, she’d tried to rebuild her life by remarrying, finding herself now with Israel – her new husband – and her family in a wagon train headed west toward a new, uncertain life. Lucy and MacLaren are drawn to each other…

Working from personal accounts of an ancestor, Emma Mitchell (Lucy’s daughter), first-time author Karen Fisher has personalized this account of western migration. Her narrative wraps the reader in detail; the story cannot help but come alive. The freshness of Fisher’s prose leads to beautiful moments on the page. Of MacLaren, she writes: “…looking back it seemed he’d found, with his wife and children, some fulcrum of the heart he’d never noticed, but it had put a power in his smallest task.” Captivating and bittersweet, this novel is filled with unexpected lyrical treats.