A Sudden Country
“Starting with a few facts of her own ancestors’ migration to Oregon, in 1847, Fisher has written a deeply affecting account of the journey West. Lucy Mitchell is travelling—much against her wishes—with her second husband and children from both marriages. The family hires as its driver James MacLaren, a former Hudson Bay Company cartographer and trader accustomed to hardship, yet freshly stung by greater loss than any of them imagine. Both Lucy and James are rich, complex characters, and each feels the other’s pull among the many needs, duties, and persistent ghosts of the journey. The writing is assured, and the novel succeeds in rendering not only the overwhelming landscape and the small, hard details of daily life but monumental sorrow and the meanderings of love in its many channels.” –The New Yorker
