Brave Hearted The Dramatic Story of Women of the American West
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Katie Hickman is the author of nine previous books, including two bestselling works of non-fiction, Daughters of Britannia - in the Sunday Times bestseller lists for ten months and a twenty-part series for BBC Radio 4 - and Courtesans. She has also written a trilogy of historical novels - The Aviary Gate, The Pindar Diamond and The House at Bishopgate - which between them have been translated into twenty languages. Her other books include two highly acclaimed travel books. Travels with a Mexican Circus (originally published as A Trip to the Light Fantastic) was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, and was one of the Independent's Books of the Year. Her history of British women in pre-Raj India, She-Merchants, Buccaneers and Gentlewomen, was published in 2019. Born into a diplomatic family, Katie Hickman had a peripatetic childhood, growing up in Spain, Ireland, Singapore and South America. She lives in London on a converted barge on the River Thames.<i>Brave Hearted</i> is not just history, it is <b>an incredibly intense page-turning experience</b>. To read what these women endured is to be transported into another universe of courage, loss, pain, and occasionally victory. This book is <b>a triumph</b>.
Amanda Foreman
A <b>vivid, fascinating</b> rag rug of cultural history that braids together stories usually kept apart . . . Gripping, eye-opening, enlightening
- Emma Donoghue,
This book delivers a blazing 360 degree view of the American story. Each page is <b>packed with gumption and grit and genius</b>.
- Bettany Hughes,
Katie Hickman has gathered a collection of <b>intriguingly vivid first-hand accounts</b> written by some of the women who ventured west. . . Hickman's <i>Brave Hearted</i> puts the rough texture of personal experience back into the big narrative of how the west was won. Along the way, she shows us what was lost.
- Lucy Lethbridge, Literary Review
<b>Beautifully written</b>, this gripping book explores the stories of the fierce women who helped shape the American West.
- Clover Stroud, Independent
In the past 50 years there has been an explosion of scholarly research that has served to dismantle those hoary old myths about the Wild West as a white male space in which women looked worried or sashayed into a saloon bar looking for trouble. In <i>Brave Hearted</i> Hickman makes deft and sensitive use of this new material. The result is <b>a glorious patchwork</b> . . . does these extraordinary women proud
- Kathryn Hughes, Sunday Times
In this <b>richly evocative</b> book, Hickman takes us to the crux of women's experiences in that fast- changing world, where opportunities for women were opening up in an often lawless atmosphere of greed, gambling, drinking and whoring. It was a rough ride, and the survivors were heroines, all of them.
Daily Mail
'Working mainly with published sources, [Hickman] has woven together an extraordinary range of women's first-person voices - we hear from more than fifty of them - into <b>a gripping narrative</b>.'
TLS
A triumphant narrative that brings many overlooked women into the spotlight.
Booklist
As easy to read as any Western with the added advantage of showing a new version of the Old West, one vital for readers to explore.
Library Journal
Full of heartrending accounts of courage and tragedy, this is<b> a vital contribution</b> to the history of America's frontier.
Publishers Weekly
An unforgettable cast of characters brings <b>an epic tale </b>to life.
BBC History Magazine
<b>Absolutely compelling</b>; telling the stories of women who for so many years have been written out of history, and making us completely rethink our image of the Wild West.
- Christina Lamb, Sunday Times
[A] wide-ranging survey of the multifaceted roles of women in the 19th-century settlement of the American West... Hickman writes sensitively... A welcome corrective to the long-skewed male-centric history of westward expansion.
Kirkus
<b>A riveting new history</b>.. <b>Hickman's writing is exquisite</b>; her background as a novelist brings these women into dramatic relief... A meticulous scholar, Hickman draws on diaries and memoirs to immerse us in these women's lives and offer important correctives... <i>Brave Hearted</i> is an alternative history of a frontier that was home for some and a fantasy for others long after the Census Bureau decided it was gone
Los Angeles Times
The epic story of the transformation of the American west, as seen through the eyes of the women who were there
'This book is a triumph' AMANDA FOREMAN
'Absolutely compelling' CHRISTINA LAMB
'A blazing view of the American story' BETTANY HUGHES
'Gripping, eye-opening' EMMA DONOGHUE
'Richly evocative... the survivors were heroines, all of them' YSENDA MAXTONE GRAHAM
'Beautifully written' CLOVER STROUD
Hard-drinking, hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns; wives and mothers travelling two and a half thousand miles across the prairies in covered-wagon convoys; African American women in search of freedom from slavery; Chinese sex-workers sold openly on the docks of San Francisco; Native American women brutally displaced by the unstoppable tide of white settlers - all had to be brave-hearted women.
Hard-drinking, hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns; wives and mothers travelling two and a half thousand miles across the prairies in covered-wagon convoys; African-American women in search of freedom from slavery; Chinese sex-workers sold openly on the docks of San Francisco; Native American women brutally displaced by the unstoppable tide of white settlers - all had to be brave-hearted women.
Drawing on letters, diaries, and other contemporary accounts, sifting through the legends and the myths, the laws and the treaties, Katie Hickman tells the epic story of the transformation of the American west, as seen through the eyes of the women who were there.
'Not just history... an incredibly intense page-turning experience. To read what these women endured is to be transported into another universe of courage, loss, pain and occasionally victory' Amanda Foreman
'Puts the rough texture of personal experience back into the big narrative of how the west was won. Along the way, she shows us what was lost' Lucy Lethbridge, Literary Review
'Deft and sensitive... a glorious patchwork... does these extraordinary women proud' Kathryn Hughes, Sunday Times
'Richly evocative... where opportunities for women were opening up in an often lawless atmosphere of greed, gambling, drinking and whoring. It was a rough ride, and the survivors were heroines, all of them' Daily Mail