This short novel is a fascinating combination of history and horror, where history often is the horror. Lone Women is set in a remote homesteading community in Montana in 1915. This sparsely settled country promises adventure, new beginnings, and opportunity for anyone who is willing to take on the hard work of making a life there. Even single women and minorities can have a go. But while this is supposed to be a land of opportunity where neighbors help one another out of necessity if not decency, old prejudices remain and old power structures will predominate. Moreover, the past that you try to escape just might catch up with you. That is the story of the Lone Women, particularly main character Adelaide Henry, a 31-year-old single Black woman from California who has left behind some horror in the hopes of starting a new life.
When the story opens, Adelaide Henry has just set fire to the family home in rural California with her parents’ mutilated bodies inside. It isn’t clear what happened to them, how they met their fate, but Adelaide has packed a large and unusually heavy, padlocked trunk and set out for a ship to Seattle and then onwards to Montana. Having grown up on her parents’ farm in a predominantly Black farming community Adelaide has no experience or knowledge of the outside world other than what she has read in newspapers about life on the Montana frontier. It isn’t long on her journey before she begins to experience prejudice based on both the color of her skin and her sex. The journey to the claim she has purchased in Big Sandy, Montana, is arduous but there is no turning back for Adelaide. Her main concern is her trunk, or rather the mysterious contents of that trunk. Adelaide always knows where it is and keeps it locked, and while the reader does not yet know what is within that trunk, we know that it is something horrible, something dangerous, something that Adelaide is responsible for and must keep hidden. Here I am reading Part 1:
Once in Big Sandy, Adelaide meets some of the folks who will be her very remote neighbors. She is struck by how predominantly white the settlement is, but most folks seem pleasant enough. Apparently, just about everyone who moves to Montana is escaping from or hiding something, and folks don’t ask a lot of prying questions. Amongst Adelaide’s first acquaintances are Grace Price and her son Sam. Grace is a school teacher who cannot seem to win the trust of the people of Big Sandy. Bertie Brown is the only other Black woman there. Bertie is a brewer who also runs a saloon/inn with her lover Fiona, a woman of Chinese American descent who takes in laundry to make money. A single black woman like Adelaide does get some attention simply by virtue of being single, Black and very tall. It is her large, mysterious trunk, however, that will bring very unwanted attention her way.
For the most part, “lone women” like Grace, Bertie, Fiona and Adelaide are treated well and can earn their way in Big Sandy just like anyone else. Big Sandy, however, does have its own local power structure dominated by white men and their white wives. The town “queen bee” is Mrs. Jerrine Reed, who, appropriately enough, runs a white women do-gooder group called the Busy Bees. They are also busy bodies who act as a moral police for Big Sandy. Mr. Reed and his pals run the town and act as judge, jury and executioner for those who violate Big Sandy’s codes. Big Sandy can be a dangerous place; the rough terrain and brutal winters can make people desperate, and small undefended farms make an attractive target for thieves. Just as Adelaide begins to make friends, perhaps even a male friend, sinister forces from outside and from her past rear up putting her, her friends and the people of Big Sandy in grave danger.
Victor LaValle writes a gripping story with lots of suspense and plenty of interesting historical facts about female Montana homesteaders. I especially like the way he gives readers horror on two fronts: the traditional ghosts/monsters and abusive white power structures. The Reeds and their cohort are reminiscent of what we see today in our political and social systems: white men hold authority and abuse it in the name of “justice” while white women rule over the social realm and bolster their men’s authority. Difference and disagreement become visceral threats to such people and lead to horror. Adelaide and her friends are going to have to face that horror firsthand and Adelaide, in order to survive, will have to trust her new friends and come to terms with her past. This is a really good story, especially if you enjoy horror, suspense, and historical fiction with strong, interesting female characters.
