In the Great Quiet
This masterful work of historical fiction tells of the fourth and largest of Oklahoma’s land rushes, which gave away lands previously pledged to displaced Native American tribes. Minnie Hoopes, a real person, and her brothers participated. Her story extends backward and forward from that 1893 event, setting her on a crash course with people who would eventually be her new community—friends and enemies alike.
Excellent voice draws the reader into Minnie’s hopes, fears, thoughts, and emotions as she grows from a clueless wild child to become the center of her community. Her protesting against the results of her own willfulness reveals and deepens her character. In addition to recalled parental and siblings’ voices, she senses the voices of other women tied to this land, past and future.
For an opportunistic land rusher, Minnie is well equipped. She owns four horses, an ivory-handled Colt Peacemaker, and a Winchester. While details betray an above average wealth for that time and place, anachronisms in information, vocabulary, and hardware occasionally break the spell of the story. The vivid rendering of colors, sounds, and details of country living increases immediacy. The great quiet is very much alive.
Vogt captures the expanse of the frontier, just as it is closing. Marginal land is ripped from those driven onto it a generation earlier and offered to others to wrest a living from it. Like Minnie, many boomers are opportunists seeking a new identity and a new life. She finds hers, but she struggles for it.
