Hunting for the Mississippi
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The year is 1684. Young Eustache Bréman leaves a life of misery begging on the streets of France for a second chance in the New World with his mom, his sweetheart Marie-Élisabeth, and Marie-Élisabeth’s family. But life is tough, with plenty more tragedy and disappointment to come on Cavelier De La Salle’s ill-fated expedition to the Mississippi. Mutinous leaders, bloodthirsty freebooters, a hostile Karankawa nation and the wild Gulf Coast bayous make for heartbreaking adventure. Weaving real historical events into the day-to-day concerns of a young boy, this action-packed novel poses some troubling questions along the way. Will God answer Eustache’s prayers? Will young love conquer all? Or will the men’s true nature be revealed and bring about their downfall?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bouchard, whose Le ricanement des hy nes won a Governor General's Award in 2005, gains his first English-language translation with this story based on the fragmentary history of an ill-fated 1684 expedition headed by Ren -Robert Cavelier to found Louisiana in Spanish territory. The tale is told from the vantage point of Eustache Br man, the 12-year-old son of a French widow whose only option for survival is begging. To escape this fate, she is persuaded by a friend to become part of the group that will cross the Atlantic to found the French colony. The tale is littered with female suffering that serves as the impetus for male action, particularly the repeated rape of a girl (starting at age 10) as a cause for revenge. (In a closing note, the author explains that he changed "a detail or two that helped the novel along," the invented sexual assault plotline apparently being one such detail.) Aboriginal people are essentially ignored other than the ways that they threaten or aid the European party, and good, virtuous, loyal citizens are the ones who survive. Ages 14 up.
