Dream Helper: A Novel of Early California

Thompson, Willard

ISBN 10: 0979755204 / ISBN 13: 9780979755200

Edité par Rincon Publishing, 2008

May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. N° de réf. du vendeur G0979755204I4N00

Synopsis :

When Cayatu, a Chumash Indian woman, is banished from her village, she is taken by two Franciscan priests to join the new Mission Santa Barbara. She is baptized there along with several other new neophytes and begins a restricted life far beyond what she expected. Even though she meets a man she is very attracted to, she yearns for the freer life living on her own along the ocean. In the process of trying to escape the mission, she kills one of the Spanish soldiers, but isn't found out and returns to her stray mat in the mission's women's quarters.

She is sent to the soldiers' fort to weave cloth for the men's uniforms and is repeatedly raped by the commandant of the Presidio. A mixed-race child is born of the rape and the baby is immediately taken from her at birth and given to a Mexican woman. Not knowing the woman's infant is the girl she gave birth to, she helps the Mexican woman raise the child. She marries the Chumash man who courts her and her nephew comes to the Mission to be with her.

As more Chumash join the mission, because their food supply has dwindled, diseases spread through the mission village and many die. Discipline grows more onerous as the soldiers and priests find themselves abandoned by Spain as it struggles to maintain its hold on its New World colonies. A major earthquake destroys much of the mission, pueblo of Santa Barbara and the Chumash village. The Mission Indians are forced into backbreaking labor to rebuild everything. When the strain gets to be too much, they revolt.

Cayatu must decide her future. She begins to leave the mission village but then thinks about her baby girl. The surprise ending brings Cayatu face to face with the commandant who raped her.

Biographie de l'auteur: ABOUT THE AUTHOR WILLARD THOMPSON Dream Helper is the first in Willard Thompson's Chronicles of California series of historical novels. Thompson is an award-winning writer, lecturer and historian living in Montecito, California. Delfina’s Gold, the second in the series was published in 2011 and the third novel, Diego’s War will be published in 2013 Thompson was awarded The Sara Miller McCune Award by the John E. Profant Foundation for the Arts to write Dream Helper, which also won an award as a work in progress at the Santa Barbara Writers' Conference. In 2008 He won a Santa Barbara Writers Conference Community of Voices Scholarship. His short story, Valentine's Day, was awarded a prize at the East of Eden Writer's Conference. In addition to historical literary fiction, Willard Thompson also writes non-fiction. Recently published articles are: Walter Vail — Empire Builder, Published in Persimmon Hill Magazine; The Last Cattle Drive, published in Range Magazine; Dividing the Waters, a brief history of Western water woes and the role John Wesley Powell played in the development of the West, also in Range Magazine. Running the Big Ditch, an account of a go-fer's life on a commercial raft running the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, published in Westways Magazine and Forbidden Fruit, an account of three days on the El Paso border working with the Border Patrol to intercept smugglers. Thompson's manuscript, Montecito Adobes and the Settlers who built Them was published by the Santa Barbara Historical Museum in 2008. Thompson also lectures, regularly on historic subjects about his adopted state, California. He is vice president and a docent at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum, a docent at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, and Arroyo Hondo Land Preserve in Santa Barbara County. He is a graduate of Colgate University in Hamilton, NY.

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : Dream Helper: A Novel of Early California
Éditeur : Rincon Publishing
Date d'édition : 2008
Reliure : Paperback
Etat : Very Good
Etat de la jaquette : No Jacket