WESTERING: An Epic Saga of the Oregon Trail

By: Irwin R. Blacker

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

THEY WERE GOING TO "THE BEULAH LAND" - THE PROMISED "FREE" AND ABUNDANT LAND IN THE WEST, WHERE RICH SOIL GUARANTEED RICH HARVESTS AND PROSPERITY FOR ALL — IF THEY LIVED TO REACH IT!.

Bonus Material: Contains a 6000 word essay by Professor Blacker written for those who want to know more about the real
Old West, detailing the best of the works he consulted while writing his novels.

"This dramatic, well-written narrative maintains its course to the end of the trail." Victoria TX Advocate

"Mr. Blacker's characterizations are uncommonly well realized." The NY Times

As train after train of covered wagons left Independence, Missouri, for the great Far West, humanity, in all its diverse forms, was pitted against the wilderness. This strong, memorable novel focuses sharply upon one small group of families who started, almost too late in the season of 1845, for the promised land of Oregon. As the story takes us westward, moving with the tautness and rhythm of the wagons themselves, it takes us also deep into the hearts and minds of men and women whose conflict was not merely with the land and its predatory nomads, but with their own motives and desires.

Families harnessing their oxen for the twentieth, fiftieth, seventieth day realized more and more forcibly that no no wagon could make this trip alone, that no man could remain entirely independent of the rest. As the vast loneliness of the prairie binds the travelers into a dwindling world of daily survival, the concentrated urgencies that have driven them upon this trip rise to the surface. Old problems — sometimes crippling, sometimes ennobling — grow into new ones long before the survivors reach the watershed of the perilous Rockies. These uprooted folk must seek out the faded trail, just as they plot out their own new lives, with care and hesitation.

How does the Bostonian with murder on his conscience react to the brutalities of pioneering not even surmised in the city? How can the dreamer from a bankrupt southern plantation bring himself to regard the Indiana farmer as an equal, let alone an ally? And how can the Jew, still bitterly hoping for a land where contempt will not destroy his dreams, hope to be accepted by these intolerant migrants?

As the journey lengthens, passions grow tight. There are moments of introspection, new understanding, even love, contrasted with violence, anger, and lust, as the relentless forces of an untamed wilderness shape the background. The days of this odyssey from America's past are recreated to the trail's end with all the brutality and beauty that were part of man's search for a new life.

“The little world of a pioneer wagon train making a late start from independence for Oregon in 1845 grows tighter as it tries to race against the snow. Under the surface of the journal kept by Stith Hibbard - and sandwiched in between his daily entries -are the stories of each member of the party, from the quality Ketterings who are running away from murder done in Boston, to the mighty blacksmith Archie who adores his pretty wife Laura who can deny no man; from Jesse Taylor driven by fear of failure and his Martha who longs for a child, to embittered and arrogant Jasper Lee, his despised wife, Blanche, and their daughter Agnes; from the Jew Straussberg to the guide MacCase. How each was to find his destiny on the trail - through suicide, murder, cholera, through whipping, marriage, or the question of leadership, through the adoption of children or the sharing of loneliness, and how, smaller but just as determined, the group made its way, even through the snow, to The Dalles is presented in a many panelled, highlighted story of cumulative interest.” Kirkus Reviews

"Mr. Blacker's characterizations are uncommonly well realized." New York Times

"Westering" is a novel to be read, thought about, and read again.” Tulsa world