The Donner-Reed Tragedy
Ted Davidson 515 pages 2002
There are many books about the Donner Party as well as many shorter pieces, all non-fiction, all telling the compelling story of the emigrants trapped for the winter at what would be called Donner Lake. Here we have a book of fiction, noted in large letters on the cover, as “An Historical Novel.” That gives the writer a lot of latitude.
Non-fiction writers about the Donner Party started telling the story almost immediately after the events (See the April, ‘15 Heirloom). The initial accounts mostly reported sensational details of madness and gore. There followed more reasoned interpretations (see the first book, McGlashan’s History of the Donner Party in the April, ’15 Heirloom) recounting the events and leaving out cannibalism in deference, one supposes, to the contemporary sensibilities. In the late 20th Century authors brought different interpretations or emphases about the events: day by day accounts, the weather, modern science about the effects of starvation, etc. In The Donner-Reed Tragegy we have the only fiction entry into the Donner Party pantheon of books and articles. It tells the story some the previous non-fiction books have told and adds to the story with what the author imagines might have happened during different incidents divided by dates.
The purpose of the fiction book, even though it reprises non-fiction treatments, is to fill in many of the holes in the story that the original diaries and reports left out. Since none of those “holes” have any facts supporting their filling, that’s all made up. We know, for example that the Donner Party took a wrong turn and ended up weeks late, among many errors of judgment and disfunction. In a non-fiction book you are left with what can be demonstrably proven. There is no need in a fiction book. You can just make up the dialogue that led to decisions and fill in the details as you want. You can make up the arguments that there must have been. The Donner-Reed Tragedy fills in a lot of those holes with made up dialogue, throws in some geographic errors and even renames one of the heroes of the story, John Stark. To deal with the last one right away, there is only one book I’ve come across that called John Stark, John Starks. Deceived The Story of the Donner Party came along four years before this one and had many problems (See the July, ’19 Heirloom). I wonder if The Donner-Reed Tragedy just redid Deceived… with dialogue?
The fiction treatment also allows the author to add his own interpretation to events and use his dialogue as proof. In The Donner-Reed Tragedy there are a couple of clear villains, Lansford Hastings, who sent the Donner Party the wrong way, and Lewis Keseberg, the last of the rescuees. Davidson works them over to make them seem the most unsavory charatcters.
That’s the introduction.
In the translation of the events to an historical novel Davidson makes up conversations, among other things. For example, he gives Bill McCutcheon a foul mouth. He makes up a whole sometimes angry discussion between Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez about whether to give a letter from Edwin Bryant to James Reed arguing against taking the Hastings Cut-off. They also mention Reed being the real leader of the Donner Party, hence the book’s title. In various ways Reed is also made to be a hero of the expedition. Tamsen Donner does some “angry reflecting” and some glaring. When some members of the Donner Party go ahead to meet up with Lansford Hastings Davidson makes up a giant to protect Hastings from an angry James Reed. Keseberg as the villain is painted by Davidson long before he was stewing and chewing pieces of human flesh (see the sidebar here). Keseberg had many bad qualities apparently, according to Davidson, including being a “lazy German bastard” and a coward. William Eddy even threatened to make Keseberg’s wife a widow at one point because Keseberg didn’t work fast enough or at all.
Of course conflict is what novels are about and on the way to Donner Lake there had to be various conflicts to keep the story going. In The Donner-Reed Tragedy there is the main conflict of the Donner Party against the environment but there are a lot of other conflicts too, at every turn. Walter Herron, traveling with James Reed goes nuts. When various members have to consolidate wagons Davidson assumes arguments and anger. There were a lot of interpersonal conflicts in the Donner Party as members fought and argued with each other. Human nature, selfishness and self preservation are also conflicts in the story.
The novelistic approach allows imagining what might have been going on as wagons got left behind and animals were killed or rendered incapable of travel by Indians or dying of exhaustion. That all provides more conflict. There must have been disagreements, perhaps continual disagreements, born of hardship and personalities forced into close contact with each other over long stressful periods but it all leads one to wonder what was true.
The fiction enables Davidson to fill holes in the story. There was not enough food and different families had different amounts. How did they deal with that or not? In Davidson’s telling there is a lot of self-preservation and selfishness. Why didn’t Bridger and Vasquez give James Reed the Edwin Bryant letter? Bridger just seems mean and rationalizes his decision, but why is not mentioned. Other examples are supposed arguments between George Donner and his teamsters, resentment over who got the Schallenberger cabin and imagining eating the family dog.
The novelization approach does add to the story when the rescuers arrive at Donner Lake. In all the non-fiction accounts that’s glossed over. Davidson tries to give the reader some sense of the horror. Imagining how the rescuers reacted to the living conditions at Donner Lake, “It’s so far down there…. Sickening smell of urine and excrement! And those putrid hides!”… “been rotting for months! Now those people area actually eating ‘em! A miracle they haven’t all died!”… “filth beyond comprehension! I can’t even begin to stomach it!”
There are a few geographical errors and the October 31 attempt at the summit is not mentioned. The book has some good maps laying out the journey.
If you don’t know anything about the Donner Party then The Donner-Reed Tragedy is a good introduction. If you want to really get into the story then Desperate Passage is still the best overall treatment (May, ’14 Heirloom) and the Donner Party Chronicles (February, ’17 Heirloom) is a good day-by-day account. Then you can imagine the details. Here we’ll give one really good example.
The story itself is compelling as told by evidence gleaned from diaries, letters, and contemporary reports as told by other authors. The addition of dialogue is supposed to tell the story better and inject the human element. Certainly the speculation fills in the holes and answers questions readers might have. But it cannot compare to actual diary entries such as James Reed’s writing about the storm at Starved Camp to which the misspellings add to verisimilitude.
“…after a great fatiguing day arrived at the prairie now Starved Camp at the head of Juba it was made by the other Compy. who had passed in but a few days previous. Here the men began to fail being for several days on half allowance, or 1 ½ pints of gruel or sizing per day. The sky look like snow and everything indicates a storm god forbid wood being got for the night & Bows for the beds of all, and night closing fast, the clouds still thicking terror dare not communicate my mind to any, death to all if our provisions do not come, in a day or two and a storm should fall on us, very cold, a great lamentation about he cold… My dreaded Storm is now on us commcd a perfect hurricane in the night. A great crying with the children and parents praying crying and lamentation on acct of the cold and the dread of death from the Howling storm… hunger is the cry with the children and nothing to give them freesing was the cry of the mothers with [unclear]… to their little starving freezing children night closing fast and with it the Hurricane increases…” [sic] March 4 James Reed Diary (various sources)
We can compare that to same part of the story in The Donner-Reed Tragedy, “Later in the night at the Summit Valley camp [not the evocative ‘Starved Camp’], sleep had overcome all the refugees and rescuers; they were unaware that the storm was gaining against the fire which burned low.
“Many yards beyond the fire, Reed slowly groped his way out of the darkness. In frozen clothes, carrying an axe and only a single piece of firewood, he was half-blind from blowing snow. He stopped and looked toward the fire.
“All he was a faint glow of light.
“Fear overpowered his numbed senses; he forced himself forward but stumbled and fell into the snow. He struggled to his hands and knees, rested for a moment, and then slowly began crawling toward the fire.”
There are a number of book reviews of books having to do with the Donner Party on our Book Review page.