A BOOK OF DAYS

In this historical novel, a Scottish soldier stationed in America meets a mysterious woman who draws him into a dark conflict with Native Americans in the 18th century.

Sara—a lonesome, peripatetic 18-year-old—finds what she’s been searching for: the military outpost where she believes her mother, Elizabeth, died. A weathered, ageless man lives there—he’s cryptically known as the Seer, a hermit with stumps in place of hands. He’s in possession of a book of which she’s heard rumors—an “orderly’s day book,” written in Gaelic by Thomas Keating, a Scottish soldier and engineer dispatched to the outpost to inspect its fortifications. The bulk of Snodgrass’ bewitching novel consists of Keating’s remarkable memoir, conveyed by the Seer to Sara in a deliciously slow march into a brutal past. When Keating comes upon the outpost, Lt. Robbie Stewart, its ranking officer, has already left with 14 of his men on a mission to help the Onagonas, an ancient tribe threatened by its neighbors for planning to leave the region. But Keating does find Elizabeth Cawley—Sara’s mother—bound to a stake, apparently by orders of Stewart, with whom she may have had a romantic relationship. Elizabeth was kidnapped by Native Americans when she was 15 years old after they killed her family, and now her true identity remains muddled, an alienation she shares with Keating: “For one thing, because neither of us belongs here. In this wilderness. Barricaded in this outpost. We were brought here to this frontier by forces totally outside of ourselves. That had nothing to do with us. You in service to your king. Me because my family looked for a new life.”

With artfully executed suspense, Snodgrass unfurls this taut knot of a story. Fearful that Stewart is in trouble, Keating and the next ranking officer, Sgt. Adam MacKenzie, plan to set out in search of him. But another soldier, referred to as Black Duncan and endowed with a kind of premonitory vision, believes danger lurks nearby. Elizabeth is an intriguingly drawn character—readers will be unsure if she is sympathetic, sinister, or some complex amalgam of both. But the author’s writing style can be ponderously leaden. For example, consider Keating’s explanation to his beloved girlfriend, Jean, as to why he feels compelled to sail to America: “ ’Tis the way [philosopher] David Hume describes it. If there can be no knowledge of anything beyond experience, then I need to seek more experience. It is a matter of honor. Of honesty with myself. I need to seek the experiences that will teach me the world is real. So I know I am real. So I know what I think and feel is real.” Nevertheless, Snodgrass does wonders with the virtue of literary restraint—why precisely the men are in such grave danger and who the Seer really is are astonishing revelations and worth suffering the sometimes-overwrought prose.

A mesmerizing soldier’s tale, grippingly dramatic.