Two Old Women by Velma Wallis
Fiction
2004 Perennial (first published in 1993)
Finished on November 2, 2017
Rating: 3/5 (Good)
Publisher's Blurb:
Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generations from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River Valley in Alaska, this is the suspenseful, shocking, ultimately inspirational tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine.
Though these women have been known to complain more than contribute, they now must either survive on their own or die trying. In simple but vivid detail, Velma Wallis depicts a landscape and way of life that are at once merciless and starkly beautiful. In her old women, she has created two heroines of steely determination whose story of betrayal, friendship, community and forgiveness "speaks straight to the heart with clarity, sweetness and wisdom" (Ursula K. Le Guin).
I'm pretty sure I've read this before, but it must have been in my pre-blogging days. My book club chose it last fall and while it's a somewhat simple story with spare prose, we had a good discussion at our meeting. We all spoke about the strength and courage of the abandoned women and their struggle to survive in the wild. Their resilience was inspiring!
The book is a very quick read (140 pages) and can be easily be finished in an afternoon.
This sounds like a difficult read. I cannot imagine leaving them to their fate!
ReplyDeleteIliana, surprisingly it wasn't a difficult read. Maybe because I had a vague recollection of reading it before, I wasn't worried about their outcome.
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