Overview

Drawn partly from a true story, a searing, totally immersive novel about a devastating Native American revolt, and a woman caught in the middle of the conflict. In the summer of 1855, Sarah Brinton abandons her husband and child to make the long and difficult journey to Minnesota, where she will meet a childhood friend. Arriving at a small frontier post on the edge of the prairie, she discovers that her friend has died of cholera. Without work or money or friends, she quickly finds a husband who will become the resident physician at an Indian agency on the Yellow Medicine River. As one of the earliest settlers in the area, Sarah anticipates unease and hardship, but instead finds acceptance and kinship with the Sioux women who live on the nearby reservation. She learns to speak their language, nourishing a companionship with them which far exceeds that which she shares with her strange and distant husband. An endless flow of White settlers are clearing the forests and claiming land. The government has yet to pay the Sioux the annuities awarded them each July for the sale of the land, and starvation and disease begin to decimate the Sioux community. What inevitably and tragically follows is the Sioux Uprising of 1862. While seeking safety at a nearby fort, Sarah and her two young children are abducted by Sioux warriors. They are unexpectedly kept safe by one of the men, who protects them until their rescue six weeks later by federal troops. Because of her sympathy for the Sioux, Sarah has become an outcast, falsely accused of marriage with her Native American captor. Vilified by the whites and despised by her husband, she is lost to both worlds. Intimate, raw, compelling, and brilliantly subversive, Susanna Moore explores the history of Native American suffering and the rapacious settlement of the Western frontier.

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Reviews

Her writing is so precise and perceptive, so disturbing, frightening and erotic all at once . . . this profoundly clever woman with her life in her hands. -Lucie Whitehouse, author of Before We Met Susanna Moore belongs to a small class of writers whose work performs the paradoxical miracle of giving solace by offering none. -The Writer Based partly on a woman's account of her abduction along with her children during the Sioux Uprising in 1862, Moore's novel is a tense, absorbing tale of adversity and survival. . . . Moore has imagined a brave, perceptive woman with no illusions about the hypocrisy of those who proclaim themselves civilized. . . . A devastating tale rendered with restrained serenity. -Kirkus Reviews, starred review [A] compelling tale of survival, loyalty and exploitation. -The Bookseller (UK)

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK from TIME Magazine Susanna Moore's eighth novel, set in 1855, follows 25-year-old Sarah Browne as she . . . heads west to the Minnesota Territory. . . . When the Sioux Uprising of 1862 erupts-after the federal government never fulfills its promise of payments to the tribe-Sarah and her children are captured, but protected by the Sioux. Sarah sympathizes with her captors, and slips into the gap between her two worlds. The Lost Wife illustrates the devastating outcomes of oppression. -TIME, Here Are the 14 New Books You Should Read in April It's fitting that The Lost Wife . . . should directly follow Miss Aluminum, [Moore's] lustrous 2020 memoir; this book, like that one, tells the story of a woman continuously transformed by difficult relationships and sweeping changes of circumstance. . . . Moore's voice is cool and sure, rich with detail. -Vogue Her writing is so precise and perceptive, so disturbing, frightening and erotic all at once . . . this profoundly clever woman with her life in her hands. -Lucie Whitehouse, author of Before We Met Susanna Moore belongs to a small class of writers whose work performs the paradoxical miracle of giving solace by offering none. -The Writer Moore (In the Cut) returns with a bracing and daring account of a woman who tries to build a new life on the American frontier. . . . This is a masterwork of Americana. -Publishers Weekly, starred review Based partly on a woman's account of her abduction along with her children during the Sioux Uprising in 1862, Moore's novel is a tense, absorbing tale of adversity and survival. . . . Moore has imagined a brave, perceptive woman with no illusions about the hypocrisy of those who proclaim themselves civilized. . . . A devastating tale rendered with restrained serenity. -Kirkus Reviews, starred review [A] compelling tale of survival, loyalty and exploitation. -The Bookseller (UK)

Based partly on a woman's account of her abduction along with her children during the Sioux Uprising in 1862, Moore's novel is a tense, absorbing tale of adversity and survival. . . . Moore has imagined a brave, perceptive woman with no illusions about the hypocrisy of those who proclaim themselves civilized. . . . A devastating tale rendered with restrained serenity. -Publishers Weekly, starred review

Author Information

Susanna Moore is the author of several novels, including In the Cut, Sleeping Beauties, and The Whiteness of Bones, and four books of nonfiction. She lives in New York City.

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