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Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Fraser
Download Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, by Caroline Fraser
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Review
“An absorbing new biography [that] deserves recognition as an essential text.... For anyone who has drifted into thinking of Wilder’s ‘Little House’ books as relics of a distant and irrelevant past, reading Prairie Fires will provide a lasting cure.... Meanwhile, ‘Little House’ devotees will appreciate the extraordinary care and energy Fraser devotes to uncovering the details of a life that has been expertly veiled by myth.â€â€•The New York Times Book Review (front page)“The definitive biography... Magisterial and eloquent... A rich, provocative portrait.â€â€•Minneapolis Star Tribune“Impressive... Prairie Fires could not have been published at a more propitious time in our national life.â€â€•The New Republic“Unforgettable... A magisterial biography, which surely must be called definitive. Richly documented (it contains 85 pages of notes), it is a compelling, beautifully written story.... One of the more interesting aspects of this wonderfully insightful book is its delineation of the fraught relationship between Wilder and her deeply disturbed, often suicidal daughter.â€â€•Booklist (starred review)“A fantastic book. We’ve long understood the Little House series to be a great American story, but Caroline Fraser brings it unprecedented new context, as she masterfully chronicles the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family alongside the complicated history of our nation. Prairie Fires represents a significant milestone in our understanding of Wilder’s life, work, and legacy.â€â€•Wendy McClure, author of The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie“Meticulously researched, feelingly told, Prairie Fires is the definitive biography of a major writer who did so much to mold public perceptions of the Western frontier. Once again, Caroline Fraser has shown that she is a master of the careful art of sifting a life, finding meaning in the large and small events that shaped an iconic American figure. Prairie Fires is a magnificent contribution to the literature of the West.â€â€•Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West“At last, an unsentimental examination of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s real life on the frontier. Caroline Fraser rescues Wilder from frontier myth and gives us the gritty, passionate woman who endured the harshest experiences of homesteading, loved the Great Plains, and was devastated by their ultimate ruin and loss. Elegantly written and impeccably researched, Prairie Fires is a major contribution to environmental history and literary biography.â€â€•Linda Lear, author of Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature and Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature“In the twenty-first century, the tense and secret authorial partnership between Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane has emerged as the most complex and fascinating psychological saga of mother-daughter collaboration in American literary history. Caroline Fraser’s deeply researched and stimulating biography analyzes their controversial relationship and places Wilder’s influential fiction in the contexts of other myths of pioneer women and the frontier.â€â€•Elaine Showalter, author of A Jury of Her Peers and The Civil Wars of Julia Ward Howe“Engrossing… Exhilarating… Lovers of the series will delight in learning about real-life counterparts to classic fictional episodes, but, as Fraser emphasizes, the true story was often much harsher. Meticulously tracing the Ingalls and Wilder families’ experiences through public records and private documents, Fraser discovers failed farm ventures and constant money problems, as well as natural disasters even more terrifying and devastating in real life than in Wilder’s writing. She also helpfully puts Wilder’s narrow world into larger historical context.â€â€•Publishers Weekly
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About the Author
Caroline Fraser is the editor of the Library of America edition of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books, and the author of Rewilding the World and God’s Perfect Child. Her writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, and the London Review of Books, among other publications. She lives in New Mexico.
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Product details
Paperback: 656 pages
Publisher: Picador; Reprint edition (August 7, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1250182484
ISBN-13: 978-1250182487
Product Dimensions:
5.4 x 1.3 x 8.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.0 out of 5 stars
363 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#8,001 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Laura Ingalls Wilder's books tell a story that is both true and misleading, the product of a strange and tortured collaboration between Laura and her daughter Rose. Told in full, it would have been a tale full of misery, mistakes and tragedy, relieved by stoic endurance and loyalty. It wouldn't have been published. Wilder struggled to turn her family's pioneer story into the inspiring, heart-warming, heroic tale that fills the Little House books. Caroline Fraser adds context beyond the much-discussed question of the true authorship of the books, placing the pioneer epic in the larger frame of conflicts between settlers and Indians, and North and South, then exploring the later role of the pioneer story in the politics and myth-making of the nation and the world. The reaction against Wilder's books that has led to her name being taken off at least one school named in her honor shocks the books' fans, but Fraser shows how Rose used the stories for her own political purposes, and the US promoted them as propaganda after World War II. Wilder herself slanted the books to bolster the image of the settlers as an ideal model for America. And yet, Fraser's affection for the books and their author shows through her admission of their myopic worldview, omissions, and outright fabrications. Her sympathies clearly lie with Laura rather than with Rose, and she provides evidence against later claims that Rose was the true author of the books.The surprises of the book for me are in the details of Rose's life and politics and how she leveraged Laura's books to further her Libertarian views, even beyond her death.My own grandmother was born in a log cabin in Wisconsin, and she married my grandfather, whose family homesteaded not far from Walnut Grove. Another grandfather was born in a sod house in Nebraska. My mother grew up in circumstances as difficult as much that Wilder described. When Wilder presents the pioneer story while minimizing or totally ignoring the plight of the displaced and murdered Native Americans, she is telling the tale as my family would have told it. Fraser expands the view to encompass what we must admit if we are honest: our success and wealth were built on the suffering of real people. These sections of Fraser's book aren't comfortable to read, but they are necessary to put the controversy about Wilder's books in context.Fraser doesn't hide her own political leanings, as she weaves her rejection of Ayn Rand's philosophy into the discussion of Rose's friendship with Rand and Rose's editing of Laura's later books to introduce Randian themes. I found that enlightening and interesting. Some people won't agree.Read this book if you are a fan of Wilder's books. If you know Wilder only from the TV series, read Wilder's books first. (I thoroughly enjoyed Fraser's take-down of the TV series, which I never saw but did read about.)I enjoyed Prairie Fire. It didn't make me dislike Wilder's books, or even have a lower opinion of Laura - - though it certainly didn't make me like Rose. I'm giving it four rather than five stars because of a little discomfort with how openly the author's biases, most of which I actually share, are expressed.
I have no argument with Fraser's research skills and that is why I gave her two stars rather than one. However, I find huge fault with the very premise of her research. How convenient for her to assail the Ingalls' family for their lack of "politically correct" sensibilities when it was our greatest American President, Abraham Lincoln who urged American settlers to go West with the Homestead Act. This book inspired the American Library Association to strip the name "Laura Ingalls Wilder" from its award, renaming it the Children's Literature Legacy Award. And why? Because of the "inconsistency between Wilder’s legacy and its core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and responsiveness through an award that bears Wilder’s name." It is a little incongruous that any body would apply 21st century values to those of the 19th century, but worse than that, Laura clearly was the most inclusive of individuals who discussed her sadness over the lot of the American Indians. Whom next does Fraser wish to destroy? Would anyone like to do a deep dive on her? I hope so!
I am a Wilder fan, having visited her home twice, taught her books many times, and been quotingly familiar with them since the age of seven. Every time I read any of them to a child, I am still charmed by the truly mesmerizing prose. Whoever spun them, Laura or Rose, they are timeless and a joy. I have also read all their other published writings and assorted articles and biographies. I know the subject.This book is long, with nearly a hundred pages of small print endnotes, to boot. I devoured it all. It starts strong, giving an account of the Minnesota Massacre, alluded to in one book where Ma quickly turns the conversation to protect little ears--smart move, Ma Ingalls. This author gives us all the back stories and national context we as adult readers want and need. She does explore the push, pull, and tug between Laura and Rose.After all this valuable light brought to our subject, which is a rocky life covering nearly a century, one comes away, if anything, even more impressed by the resilience of Laura Ingalls. Someway, she did pen her stories into the very best "good parts version" of a life journey that was decidedly mixed. And she did it, in league with her daughter, beginning in later life, in a farmhouse, on Big Chief nickel tablets that are a handicap to write on, besides.For the real fans among us, and there are many, this book is a delight, even as our hearts are wrenched by the whole truth. One may not read it fast, but one will read it, and learn a lot of American history into the bargain.
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