Follow the River

There is nothing I liked about this book. Is is repetitive and boring.

Description and the history of the Indians lives during George Washington reign!

Mary Draper Ingles was kidnapped by the Shawnee Indians in 1755 during the French Indian Wars. She was determined to return to her husband and made a dangerous trek through treacherous and uncharted wilderness. She traveled with another woman who became mad with hunger. Finally after Greta threatened to cannibalize her, Mary knew that they needed to travel separately. Fighting starvation Mary finally reached her destination. I am shaking my head in marvel and disbelief at this woman's courage and indomitable spirit. There are some gruesome details in this fascinating book but it's an amazing true story. The author did thorough research to make it as accurate as possible.

Too long due too many details of suffering. Four chapters too many.

So we’ll done! Best adventure story I’ve read in a while!

Interesting & engaging plot (based on a true story) but woefully lacking character development.

This is an enjoyable but often repetitive, and strangely homoerotic, frontier novel in the same genre as The Frontiersman, which Thom intentionally mirrored. The scope is quite small detailing a single historical incident. Nevertheless, the nature writing is superb, I really felt like I was there. Thom lived his real life in a constant state of research, living in a historical log cabin, eating grubs and grass to know what it's like, backcountry bushwacking through the same terrain as Mary. Still it gets repetitive, how often can one be on the verge of death, at the utter end of ones reserves, and yet keep going, chapter after chapter, it strains credibility. He seemed to run out of ways to describe the hardship repeating the same things. The relationship between Mary and her Dutch companion has homoerotic tensions, maybe this was intentional to contrast her desire for her husband, but it was kind of dime store novel stuff that would have better without. This is a minor classic and still widely read and enjoyed I will remember it.

OK survival story of a young English-American wife who escapes from Indian captivity in 1700s colonial America along with an older Dutch woman.

I read this book years ago, and the story has stuck with me (mostly a 'would I have survived what she did?' feeling). It was so long ago that I thought a woman wrote the book. Clearly I was wrong!

This is a true adventure book, full of moment after moment of trials and tribulations, yet also of joy and tenderness. Somewhat amazingly, the story is based on real people and real personal history. Set in French and Indian War early America, the narrative does a good job of revealing frontier life and characters. The bulk of the book is about an almost super human struggle. I was most appreciative of the author's ability to avoid superficiality in accessing the complexities of specific situations, both physical and personal. This is no B-movie special-effects shoot-em-up. The detail is there, and in a natural way, not like a professor stopping periodically to explain some interesting nuance. I would have loved to have read this book as a teenager, but I thoroughly enjoyed it as an old geezer. I certainly see myself reading more of this author's books.

Harrowing tale of one woman's grit and tenacity. Begins with the Shawnee raid on the English settlement, her capture (including her two young boys, sister-in-law and another male neighbor), continues with her trip to Shawnee Town and subsequent escape three months later from a salt lick miles to the west which made her return trip 800+ miles. She was 23 when it happened (1755) and she died in 1815 at the age of 83.

What a great read and so unexpected. Never heard of this author before.
First of all I did not know what this book was about so did not know it was based on a true story.

So to me this book could have had many different scenarios and outcomes and I think that was why it was such a great read for me.

Yes it is cruel but so were the days back then and by the way read some true crime and you know people are still as cruel probably more so now.

There were a lot of scenarios in my mind thanks to the great writing.
Like I thought she would fall in love with the Shawnee chief because there was some attraction between them. Then when she ran away I still thought he would catch her, yes it is a good thing to not know the real ending cause it was fun to think up all those ways her story could end.

This author is very good in making you feel you are there. Not that I was happy to feel like I was there with a crazy woman who wanted to eat me. ;)

It is hard to write about this and not spoiler. This is a book I want my friends to read and I want tot talk about.

It felt like a great ride and I read it pretty quickly.
Highly recommend this book for people who like historical fiction and/or enjoy true stories or survivor stories.

One of my all time favorites. I love how she is smart and strong and will do anything to survive.

Outstanding book! If it wasn't a true story it would be hard to believe! To be captured by Indians and having them take your two sons and having to leave your baby daughter so you could escape is heart breaking! To travel hundreds of miles with no provisions and only one blanket between two people and having your shoes wear out and being barefoot in the winter! Not many people, let alone a woman could do such a thing.

I chose to read "Follow the River" by James Alexander Thom not so much to be entertained and inspired by the story of Mary Ingles’s escape in 1755 from Indian captivity and her torturous return from the Ohio River to her family’s frontier settlement west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I had read about her ordeal, it being a true story, years ago. I wanted to see how Thom dealt with what I anticipated would be two major difficulties: description of her surroundings and portrayal of her thoughts and emotions. Being that Mary was isolated so much and that she was forced to trek through wild, diverse terrain, I recognized that surmounting these difficulties would be a substantial achievement.

Thom explains at the end of the book that he traveled Mary Ingles’s route home as part of his research. Not surprisingly, his description of her surroundings is genuine, readily believable. Included in much of his description is sharp sensory imagery, derived, I am certain, from close personal observation.

"Thunder grumbled, lightning flickered on the horizon, and as the clouds climbed, a blast of damp air shivered the surface of the river and turned the leaves of the forest white side up. Soon the thunderheads dominated the whole sky above the river; they came gliding across, their undersides lowering and dragging gray veils of rain under them. Birds and insects fell silent."

Equally impressive is Thom’s ability to describe Mary’s physical suffering, so necessary to evoke reader identification and empathy. In this passage near the end of the novel Mary is scaling a steep incline between two immense, vertical pillars of rock.

"She hung there for a moment, saw a leafless dogwood sapling two feet above her head. She got her numb left hand up to it and around it, forced the fingers to close, and pulled herself, panting and squinting, a little further up, her naked abdomen and thighs scraping over snow and rock and frozen soil, her cold-petrified toes trying awkwardly to gain traction."

Thom’s ability to narrate Mary’s thoughts and emotions is equally vital to the success of the novel. One aspect of her thought processes is her wavering allegiance to God. How could a benevolent, omnipresent Lord countenance the horrors she had witnessed and the miseries she daily endured? I appreciated especially these thoughts, which follow her successful ascent of the steep incline partially described above.

"She lay with her face against the frozen dirt and had her say with God.
Lord, I’ll thank’ee never to give me another day like this if I grow to be eighty.
No one deserves a day like this.
This is the most terrible day I’ve had in a hell of terrible days and I’m no’ grateful for it.
Now give me the strength to make my way across and down this devil’s scarp. Do that and then maybe I can make peace with’ee."

The detail of Mary’s ordeal makes the novel fascinating. Adding considerably to the tension of Mary’s situation is the presence of her companion, an unstable, middle-aged Dutch woman who becomes homicidal. Each chapter presents a specific conflict that is a component of Mary’s overall battle to survive and reach her destination. The story never loses momentum.

At appropriate places Thom’s narration touches the reader’s emotions. I was especially moved by Mary’s leaving-taking of her infant child, born during Mary’s early captivity.

"Her hot tears were dropping on the baby’s forehead and would awaken it; little frowns were disturbing its face and its little beak of an upper lip sucked in the soft red lower lip. Mary couldn’t stop herself. She kissed the little mouth and then, with anguish that would surely kill her, she rose to her feet and stumbled, tearblinded, to the edge of the camp, her lungs quaking for release, her throat clamped to hold down the awful wail of despair that was trying to erupt."

"Follow the River" deserves high praise.

An intriguing tale of a young woman's flight through the wilderness. The lively descriptions really draw you into the story, making you feel like you're part of it and experiencing everything alongside Mary.
An emotional, but beautiful story of strength and survival, giving a great look at life in the early days of the USA.

This is an extremely engrossing story, based upon the written experiences of 18th century pioneers in what is now West Virginia. Mary Ingles and most of her family are taken captive during a Shawnee raid. What she endures, and how she manages to survive is fascinating, especially when you realize that this is not Hollywood, but the 'real deal'.

The author has done a superb job of fleshing out the characters and information to relate the story of Mary Ingles' 6 week walk through the wilderness in an attempt to reunite with her husband and brother.

I had a hard time putting down this book, even to sleep!

Mary Ingals lived in Draper's meadow. In the year 1755 a pregnant Mary, her two sons, and sister-in-law were captured by indians. For thirty days they followed the new river to the Shawnee town on The Ohio river. This story tells of her escape with another captive. For 45 days without weapons and provisions the two escapees walked home in late fall, early winter back to draper's meadow. What a wonderful testament to the pioneer spirit, the struggle and perseverance of a determined soul to get home.

What a paragon of a woman! Amazing tale of physical and emotional determination and survival. Thom explains her actions in a way that makes sense, despite the incredulous nature of her choices. Well worth the trip upriver.

This is a really good book about the capture of a white pioneer woman by a Shawnee war party and then her subsequent escape.

If this book had just been loosely based on historical fact for the purposes of entertainment, I probably would have given it four stars. One star is definitely for the author's effort to base both the story and the characters on reality to the point that is humanly possible when writing about someone who live in the mid 1700s while still making the story flow well. The note from the author at the end was as fascinating as the book itself.

James Alexander Thom did an amazing job of recreating the life and journey of Mary Ingles. He researched the facts that were available to a great extend and then made much of Mary's journey himself in order to describe it accurately. This really shows in the book. So does his knowledge of Shawnee culture of the time. He is a very believable writer. This makes for great historical fiction. You can tell that Thom really feels his characters. and he brings them to life. The story is faced paced when it should be and drags just enough during the tedium of Mary's journey to represent how it must have drug on for her and her companion.

I read one critical review of this book that suggested it would have been better if more had been said of the conflict (The French and Indian War) that spurred the Native American hostility of the time. I have to disagree with this. Though the time period and it's events are obviously important to the story, Thom presents it from Mary's perspective as a white captive. That perspective is at times one of respect for her captors, but mostly one of anger and hate at the people who killed members of her family, took her prisoner and stole her children. It is a realistic depiction of how she must have felt, and any effort to show the other side of the story would have felt false.

This book was a surprise by me. I didn't expect to like it so much, but it was a wonderful women's adventure story.

I've often seen book jacket blurb-writers claim "This novel was so exciting I literally couldn't put it down," but I've only had that experience once myself -- with Follow the River.

This is not high literature, but a good "old-fashioned" novel that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. Based on a true story of a young woman captured by Indians in Virginia in the 1700s, Follow the River vividly conjures up Mary Ingles's world. The Indians who kidnap her are neither ruthless savages, nor idealized people living in simple harmony with the natural world. And Mary's incredible 1000-mile journey home when she escapes is beyond harrowing. The perfect escapist read, pun intended.

Set in 1755, based on true story.

I like these historical fictions. =)

Beware: this book is addictive!