Mountain Man: A Novel of Male and Female in the Early American West

Rating:
Summary: A Brilliantly Written & Beautifully Expressed Tale
Review: Vardis Fisher wrote better novels than this but not very many. I can only echo the comments of others. From the first scenes, the author shows a country that is breath-takingly beautiful yet harsh and cruel. But Fisher is humane if honest. He is not racist, but his characters are. "Sam Minard hated the Blackfeet. ... Most of the mountain men hated all Indians." (page 14) "The contempt, on both sides, had its beginning in the earliest association of redmen and white.... Each thought the other fantastically stupid, and his low opinion of the other's mind and values gave zest to slaughter and scalping." (page 25) It might also be noted that Fisher, who was an atheist, has his characters speak frequently of "the Almighty," but it would be a mistake to construe from this that Fisher was religious.