Glendon Swarthout

Four women in the isolated frontier territory go mad, and it is up to the unlikely combination of homesteader Mary Bee Cuddy and ne'er-do-well Briggs to escort them east to safety.

A Novel

The Homesman

Janice Hopper

** spoiler alert **
           I watched the movie based on this book one afternoon when I was bingeing on Tommy Lee Jones movies. It was in the Netflix section of "Movies based in books." So I looked the book up. It was available on Scribd, so I read it basically in one day. 

The story's about 4 women (there were only 3 in the movie) who'd gone mad during a bad winter in their homesteads on the Great Plains. Since crazy women in that time were no good to settlers, the local community arranged for them to be sent back east to their families or to insane asylums. None of the husbands can/will take time off to take the women back. Mary Bee Cuddy, a single woman with her own homestead, volunteers to do the transporting. She ends up with an unlikely helper in George Briggs, a man who's been left to hang because he's a claim jumper. 

Spoilers from here on. 

The movie is very faithful to the book. I thought the movie was a bit odd, in that it seemed to be about Mary Bee Cuddy at first. As the story unfolds, though, George Briggs gets more time up front. And when Mary hangs herself, George is the one character we have left to follow. George is NOT an admirable character. You might view the last part of the book as almost a redemption arc, except for the fact that George isn't redeemed. It's pretty clear he's going back to his old ways as soon as he can. He just had a few moments of clarity/responsibility that let him complete something he'd promised to do. He had a bit more regard for Mary Cuddy than he realized. But she's gone now, and his obligations are done. 

While we 'd had hints through the story that Mary wasn't quite the bastion of stability she seemed, I was still shocked by her suicide. This passage (Briggs' musings on their trip) may be key:

"When they set out from Loup, she was as much man as she was woman. She could ride and shoot and handle a span of mules and give orders. Day by day, though, on the trail, there were more and more things she couldn’t do, that only he could, and did, and that rubbed her the wrong way. Gradually all she could manage was to cook and care for the passengers and take his orders and be a woman. That broke her spirit and her mind."

Excerpt From: "The Homesman: A Novel" by Glendon Swarthout. Scribd.
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Read this book on Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/224236530

That, and loneliness. Loneliness is a powerful thing. 

It's a good story, told in spare, uncomplicated prose that keeps you turning pages. I probably wouldn't have read it if I hadn't seen the movie, but I'm glad I read it.

The Homesman A Novel

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