North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, 2010
What to make of an old-fashioned telling of a thoroughly
modern story? Brenda Marshall’s Dakota
may put off some impatient readers by following certain literary conventions of
the time about which she is writing (the 1870s)—chapter headings describe what
will happen in that chapter, for example, and rich exposition helps complete
the portrait of the people and landscape of the Dakota Territory—but
persistence will be rewarded. This novel tells a surprising and a compelling story
that you haven’t heard before, and it’s filled with extraordinarily complex and
memorable characters.
The “Pre-Amble” offers clues as to what the book is about:
it’s a story of independence. “That narrative of independence remains as
powerful, as false, as necessary as ever in the Dakotas. It has become our
fetish, replacing the lost object of desire, the impossible place that never
was. You have been told that there is nothing there. I tell you there is too
much. Even where there is nothing, there is too much of it.” This prologue also
gives us a list of the various narrative voices the reader will meet, including
the book’s dominant voice, that of Frances Bingham: “I mean for this to be my
story. It, too, is a story of what a woman’s patience can endure, as well as of
what a woman’s resolution can achieve.”
This Frances has married one Percy Bingham in order to be
near his sister, Anna, the true object of Frances’s desire. Percy, however, is
no great catch, although his lack of ambition means that proximity to Anna is
secured, even when the family moves from St. Paul to the “Bonanza Farm” of
Percy and Anna’s father, John Bingham, who has acquired his stake through his
connections to the Northern Pacific Railroad. It is there, on the farm, that
Frances discovers her independence, and allows herself to pursue her “object of
desire.” But it is the 1870s, and nothing is very simple. As a woman, one who
is more competent than any of the men around her, she cannot easily strike out
on her own. She is a wife and is herself an object, no matter how she would
like to be defined. When she is rebuffed by Anna, she is reluctant to act when
a new desire emerges.
Life is hard in the Dakota Territory, and not just for
Frances. Blizzards seem endless, and are followed almost invariably by flooding
and disease. Alcoholism is not unusual, and there are other addictions as well.
One of the most memorable characters in the book is Little Carl, who harbors a
shocking secret. There is also Jack Shaw, a Russian Jew who abandons the swamp land
his community bought, believing the marketing hype about the golden prairie.
There is manipulative J.B. Power, an executive of the Northern Pacific
Railroad, the driving force behind the settlement of the territory. There is
Alexander McKenzie, the scheming businessman who bends everyone, including
politicians and businesspeople, to his will, who has his sights set on Frances.
And there is sweet Kirsten, the Norwegian girl who learns, even better than
Frances, how to survive on her own.
Frances, though, is the heart of the story. And while the
reader’s sympathy is often with her as she battles her drunkard husband, as she
seeks recognition for her skills, as she tries to do right by her
less-fortunate neighbors, as she copes with her own desires, her struggle for
independence reveals her imperfections. She is, ultimately, selfish, and for
that she pays a high price—and learns a very hard lesson.
But the book is also a story of the Dakota Territory, and
the author’s command of its history is truly impressive. It’s well worth
reading.
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