Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati

From the Publisher

Weaving a tapestry of fact and fiction, Sara Donati’s epic novel sweeps us into another time and place…and into a breathtaking story of love and survival in a land of savage beauty.

It is December of 1792. Elizabeth Middleton leaves her comfortable English estate to join her family in a remote New York mountain village. It is a place unlike any she has ever experienced. And she meets a man unlike any she has ever encountered—a white man dressed like a Native American: Nathaniel Bonner, known to the Mohawk people as Between-Two-Lives. Determined to provide schooling for all the children of the village, Elizabeth soon finds herself locked in conflict with the local slave owners as well as with her own family. Interweaving the fate of the Mohawk Nation with the destiny of two lovers, Sara Donati’s compelling novel creates a complex, profound, passionate portait of an emerging America.

Laura Jamison

At first. . .[Wilderness] appears to be derivative and ridden with cliches. . . .If you can hang on. . .the author builds a powerful adventure story, animating everyone. . .in a gorgeous, vividly described American landscape. —People

Library Journal

Much touted by its publicist, this first novel features Englishwoman Elizabeth Middleton, who hardly expects to fall for an American frontiersman when she travels to the New World.

Laura Jamison

At first. . .[Wilderness] appears to be derivative and ridden with cliches. . . .If you can hang on. . .the author builds a powerful adventure story, animating everyone. . .in a gorgeous, vividly described American landscape. -- People

Rose

September 1998

It is very rare that debut novels reveal much mastery of craft, character, and story. But in rare instances, they do. Margaret Mitchell, with Gone with the Wind, created a masterpiece, which was unfortunately her only novel. Jean Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear was another first novel that soared. Well, let me introduce you to one of the best new storytellers to come around since Diana Gabaldon.

Sara Donati is truly amazing.

She has with this, her first published novel, created a lush canvas of richly drawn characters and fascinating stories all in one great fictional world. I am so used to reading hyperbole about new fiction that I'm immune to most of it at this point. So I was pleasantly shocked as I read Into the Wilderness, turning page after page, trying to find a place where I could put it down, and found that I could not stop reading. Do not pass this book up. Do not let it get by you. Sara Donati is the real thing, and Into the Wilderness will no doubt become a popular classic.

In her acknowledgments, Donati thanks, among others, J. F. Cooper. The "J. F." stands for James Fenimore, and Donati is gracious to thank him. Into the Wilderness owes a delicious debt to the Leatherstocking tales of James Fenimore Cooper, and even those who haven't read him are sure to know the hit movie of a few years' back, "The Last of the Mohicans," based on his novel of the same name. There are echoes of this story within Into the Wilderness, but they serve more as reference points than anything else. Donati has created a wholly original tale, using the background of 18th-century North America and the mingling of Mohawk and Six Nations culture with the growing pioneer culture of the post-Revolutionary War.

I cannot recommend this book to you highly enough. There are a lot of wonderfully romantic novels out there, but this one goes beyond most. It is a startling story, one that moves smoothly and manages to create a world for the reader to fall in love with and take to the heart. But I'm sure you want to hear more about it, so here goes:

Elizabeth Middleton never considered herself an outsider until she left her secure existence in England for the wilds of America. It's the winter of 1792, and she did not know real cold until she arrived in the forests of upstate New York, where her father owns an immense property called Paradise.

She has come to teach all the children of the area, but upon her arrival she finds several roadblocks to this goal, not the least of which is that her father has not really prepared the way. Instead he has been trying to arrange a sensible marriage between Elizabeth and Richard Todd, a well-to-do doctor. Elizabeth learns why: Her brother Julian not only lost their dead mother's inheritance to Todd in gambling but even cut into his father's money with his debts. Now their father is cash-poor. A good marriage for his daughter would not only make the old man happy but also ensure that a wiser man than Julian would be at the helm of the vast estate their father has spent his life building.

Elizabeth is horrified at her father's scheming, even while she understands the dilemma. She's ready to bolt back to England. But the sparks fly when Elizabeth meets Nathaniel Bonner, the white son of Hawkeye, who in turn is the son of Chingachgook. Those familiar with James Fenimore Cooper's stories will recognize a bit of this lineage. Nathaniel is white in skin only. He is wholly Native American. He and his family, which includes a young daughter by a wife who died in childbirth, survive by the good graces of Elizabeth's father. But they seek to somehow purchase the mountain they occupy from him in order to allow the area to maintain some kind of permanent dignity.

Elizabeth is the only white person in the area to appreciate the humanity of the local Indians. The white families all around her fear them, and have created myths about them. Someone has even gone so far as to steal from Nathaniel and his relatives so that they have been destitute during the long winters. As her respect and admiration for Nathaniel Bonner grow, so does their love for each other. But within the very community in which Elizabeth lives, something far greater threatens their future happiness.

No synopsis of this story will do it justice. It is all too rare that a first novel leaps into the imagination as quickly as does Into the Wilderness. The author's ability to create both romantic sparks and historical depth around a fascinating epic story is masterful, to say the least. Miss this at your own risk.

--Jessi Rose Lucas

Jessi Rose Lucas's first romance novel, The Swan Prince, is forthcoming. She lives on the New England coast and is currently working on her second novel, The Tarnished Knight, a medieval romance about Lancelot and Guinevere.

Kirkus Reviews

Elizabeth Middleton is a 29-year-old spinster who leaves England in 1792 with her brother Julian to join their father, a judge with significant land holdings in upper New York State. She plans to establish a school where she can teach the children in the village of Paradise, but has not counted on the sexy, diverting presence of Nathaniel Bonner, a white man raised as a member of the Mohawk tribe. The attraction is immediate and mutual, and the two quickly become involved in a steamy affair. Elizabeth must take great pains to keep their romance hidden from the narrow-minded villagers and from her father, who wants her to marry the local doctor, Richard Todd (Todd's ample funds could help pay off the judge's many debts).

When she defies her father and elopes with Nathaniel, her family and the village are horrified. The lovers disappear into the woods, where Todd tracks them ruthlessly. When Nathaniel is wounded by an accidental gunshot, Elizabeth travels solo for days to seek aid for her now-husband. Along the way, she's captured and nearly killed by the evil Jack Lingo, who is pursuing long-lost Tory gold that he believes Nathaniel has hidden away. When she and Nathaniel finally return to Paradise, it's only to face the hamlet's ingrained bigotry. Exemplary historical fiction, boasting a heroine with a real and tangible presence.

What People Are Saying

Diana Gabaldon
One of those rare stories that let you breathe the air of another time, and leave your footprints, on the snow of a wild, strange place.

Amanda Quick
A richly involving, fully textured tale. Each time you open a book, you hope to discover a story that will make your spirit of adventure and romance sing. This book delivers on that promise.

Allan W. Eckert
Here is a beautiful tale of both romance and survival under conditions almost unimaginable in their difficulty, conditions that Sara Donati lets us see and feel with a powerful intensity. Here is the beauty as well as the savagery of the wilderness and, at the core of it all, the compelling story of love of a man and a woman, both for the untamed land and for one another.

Diana Gabaldon
My favorite kind of book is the sort you live in, rather than read. Into the Wilderness is one of those rare stories that let you breathe the air of another time, and leave your footprints on the snow of a wild, strange place. I can think of no better adventure than to explore the wilderness in the company of such engaging and independent lovers as Elizabeth and her Nathaniel.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Interviews & Essays
• Reading Group Guide
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Interviews & Essays

Sara Donati: Thanks for having me. I'm very well and looking forward to talking to your readers.

Sara Donati: Most of us tend to think that environmental concerns are very new, but they have been in the public consciousness for a long time. There were already hunting laws and hunting seasons in place in 1792, for example. I wanted to draw on this history to make the time and place seem more real and immediate. I hope you enjoy the novel!

Sara Donati: Hi, Chris. My idea for the novel was fairly simple. I wanted to take characters similar to those in Jane Austen's novels and put them in an unfamiliar place. Who ever thinks of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and James Fenimore Cooper's frontier as having happened at the same time? So I based Elizabeth Middleton on the daughters in her novels: upper middle class, very socially correct, from quiet country neighborhoods. And then I put them together with Cooper's frontierspeople and watched them grow and change. It was a challenge, but also a lot of fun.

Sara Donati: Minnie, thanks for dropping in. I'd have to say that the novel is a very loose retelling of Cooper's THE PIONEERS -- I borrowed some of his characters and a little of his plot. It's an affectionate tribute, but it's changed a lot, too.

Sara Donati: Well, Christina, I started writing, the characters came to life, and the story began to evolve. Seven hundred and five pages later, the story came to a logical stopping place. I didn't plan for it to be so long, and even I'm a little surprised at its length. But in the end, the story demanded it. For all its length, I think it's a fairly fast-reading novel, no? And it took me about two and a half years to write it, but I was writing another book at the same time, and teaching as well.

Sara Donati: Reg, that's an interesting question. I think the biggest challenge was getting the Mohawk history as factually and emotionally correct as I could. I felt a real obligation to avoid stereotype and not to cast the Native American characters as victims. It was a difficult challenge, and one that still occupies me a lot.

Sara Donati: I do live on the West Coast, but I grew up in the Midwest and I spent a lot of time in New York State where my father's family lived. The setting interested me because I wanted to write about postrevolutionary times and the lives of everyday people facing many challenges. Also, I did want to retell some of Cooper's story, so that pretty much meant New York.

Sara Donati: Oren: Yes! I'm glad you asked. One of the things I like to do best is to interweave fiction with fact. Some of the characters were real. The scene at dinner in Albany with the French immigrants -- they were real men, and they came to found a settlement called Castorland, which failed after much hardship. There are other real characters too. I always wonder if readers catch them or not.

Sara Donati: Bethany, I think the most fascinating thing is to get a picture of the real turmoil that existed in the few decades after the Revolution. The process of becoming a nation was a long and difficult one, although we tend not to hear about that much in history books. Did you know that there was no U.S. currency until the mid 1790s, and then it took a long time to get going? Up until then, people still used British currency, along with every other kind -- from as many as seventeen other nations. Taxation was a mess (even more than it is now!), there were still debtors' prisons. A truly interesting period.

Sara Donati: Lillian, I don't mind if people want to call it a romance or a love story -- that is, after all, the most important of the story lines. It's not a traditional romance, of course: It doesn't end when Elizabeth and Nathaniel become a couple. The majority of the novel explores how they change and evolve after they are married. But I think many people like a good love story, even if they don't want to call it a romance. So I'm easy, I suppose, on that one.

Sara Donati: I have another novel out [that I wrote] under a different name. That novel is very different from this one, so I used a different name to keep them separated -- apples and oranges, so to speak. If you're really interested, it's called HOMESTEAD and it's under the name Rosina Lippi.

Sara Donati: Jen: I'm so glad you're enjoying it. My advice for any writer is always the same: 1) Read. You have to keep the fire stoked, as I like to think of it. 2) Write! Keep at it. 3) Learn how to take and use constructive criticism from other writers. This is often the hardest part for new writers, who are very protective of what they produce.

Sara Donati: I read about 300 books in whole or part, visited museums and archives, and most important I spoke to experts in various areas -- especially to hunters and trappers, medical people, and historians. It was hard work, but it was also a great deal of fun and very satisfying.

Sara Donati: Well, first you must be prepared for a very big lake that wasn't in my story. In the late 1800s, they dammed the Sacandaga to make the Great Sacandaga Lake, so some of the sites in the novel are now underwater. But otherwise I can't think of any place in the Adirondacks that isn't worth visiting. I love the whole area. If you venture further west, the Finger Lakes are wonderful too. I would suggest the Schuyler's home -- where Elizabeth and Nathaniel were married. It's still standing. The name of the town is no longer Saratoga, though. They renamed it Schuylerville, and what is now Saratoga is a newer settlement. Hope this helps!

Sara Donati: Ziggy: I like this question. I always look at it as an opportunity to push my favorite books and authors. Jane Austen and George Eliot are right at the top of the list because of the way they develop female characterizations. More recently, my favorite authors are Alice Munro, Mark Helprin, Barry Unsworth, A. S. Byatt (POSSESSION is one of my all-time favorite novels). This book specifically was influenced by Cooper, as I've said here already. But it was also influenced by Barry Unsworth and by a novel written by Charles McCarry called BRIDE OF THE WILDERNESS.

Sara Donati: I'm reading Carol Shields's LARRY'S PARTY and Margaret Lawrence's HEARTS AND BONES. I love this Lawrence novel, which is set in Maine in the 1780s. Absolutely wonderful.

Sara Donati: That is a wonderful question, Nickie. I suppose if I could project myself into the book, I'd like to be Elizabeth, as she experiences so much. But I'd also like to be Hannah, who is very close to my heart. The part of the book I'd want to live through myself...hmm. I'd love to be at the lacrosse game at Barktown.

Sara Donati: I think people are hungry for meaty stories, and historical fiction usually provides that. Good characterization is important too, of course, but the story is first and foremost for most readers, it seems to me. I do have an idea for a contemporary novel, which I may start fiddling with soon.

Sara Donati: When I teach creative writing, I don't usually use my own work in the classroom. Sometimes, toward the end of the course, I will have the students read a short story of mine if it fits into what we are discussing. But the course is supposed to be about them, not me. I have a fear of turning a class into a fan club. I know it happens to other writers on rare occasion, and I'm very wary of it. However, [students] often take heart from the knowledge that I have to rewrite and revise and revise and rewrite, so I do talk about that process and how it works for me personally.

Sara Donati: Diane, yes! This is exactly what interested me. It was a very fertile time for women's rights. Mary Wollstonecraft was very visible in England, and women had a big role to play in the abolitionist movement. But overall women lived under great restrictions. On the frontier, some of those restrictions were eased and others were not. I found that really interesting and wanted to explore it. Elizabeth brings the outer world into Paradise, ideas about the rights of little girls (who would have thought to give them any?). She is not anachronistic, but she is unusual in this setting.

Sara Donati: The sequel to INTO THE WILDERNESS, as yet untitled.

Sara Donati: I think I'm fairly typical. I had a first short story published in GLIMMER TRAIN when I was 32, and I struggled and struggled along for ten years. Then, in a rather hectic chain of events, my agent sold three novels in three months (I suppose that is where the usual story line changes in my case). All I can say is, find a good agent!

Sara Donati: Helen: I see I have a few more minutes! Yes, this novel is a loose retelling of Cooper's THE PIONEERS. I hope you won't be disappointed.

Sara Donati: I've really enjoyed talking to everyone. Thanks so much for this opportunity! There's a chat board at America Online for INTO THE WILDERNESS if anybody is interested. Look up "Women of the Wilderness" if you have the opportunity. Sorry to have missed some interesting questions here.

Reading Group Guide

Read an Excerpt