I stopped writing about all the mysteries I read a couple of years ago, but I planned to write about Blood Memory because it, along with the nonfiction title Chief Left Hand, was the One Book One Broomfield selection for 2014. However, I have been unable to make myself plod through Chief Left Hand, which is full of information but not very engagingly written. So, I decided to just post this summary of the Novel Conversations group's discussion (which I missed due to illness), provided by group member Colleen:
We rated the books an overall "C."
Most did not like the main character because of her drinking, and felt
the nonfiction book was a bit tedious and repetitive. We did
enjoy the scenes of the Denver neighborhoods and the rich family
from Cherry Creek and learned a lot about the Native American tribe and
the history of Sand Creek. We all agreed that this was not Margaret Coel's best
effort.
Saturday is the author event at the Broomfield Auditorium. I'll add a comment on this entry after I hear what the author has to say.
I went to Margaret Coel's talk for One Book One Broomfield on Saturday. It was interesting but not what I expected (she didn't read from either book!). She barely mentioned the mystery, instead spending the entire time talking about Chief Left Hand, interweaving his story with reflections on how she became interested in him and the five years of research she did for the book. My favorite anecdote was this one: Whether Left Hand was killed at Sand Creek was a matter of dispute among historians. She was interviewing a history professor who claimed that he had survived and moved to Oklahoma. She asked the professor what his sources were and he replied, "You can cite me." Later, she uncovered primary source documents at the Denver Public Library Western history collection that indicated Chief Left Hand was fatally wounded at Sand Creek but managed to escape to a Sioux encampment, where he died. I do hope that history professor subsequnetly found himself citing Ms. Coel!
ReplyDelete