THE SCARLET FEATHER

by Dale Van Every ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 9, 1959

This comes closer, perhaps, to The Bridal Journey in its mood and pace- in yet another colorful story of the frontier. The time is 1785; the area- a strip of land on the North bank of the Ohio above Louisville, an area which the military questioned as habitable, the Indian threat being what it still was and the treaties of doubtful validity; the caste of characters including the Jordan family from Virginia, with their servants and artisans- and the mountain poor whites, the Slovers, shiftless, amoral, but more accustomed to the wilderness ways and therefore tolerated. None seemed equipped or aware of the basic needs or attitudes, and winter found them facing starvation, their protections inadequate, their food stores raided by Indians, their communications cut off, and the inevitable closeness creating violent passions and new terrors. They had one neighbor, Caleb, more Indian than white, who knew the tricks of survival- but asked a price, Tracy, foster daughter of the Jordans, as wife. It was a strange mating- foredoomed to disaster. But when the end came, and Revel Hundred, as the settlement called itself, was to be uprooted, Caleb found an answer which Tracy recognized as the right one for her. A story such as this may have happened again and again on our slowly opening frontiers, and Van Every, while not endowed with any startling originality of characterization or plot, has an authentic touch and spins a good yarn.

Pub Date: March 9, 1959

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Holt

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1959

Categories: FICTION