A's Reviews > The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride

It’s not often that a history book will compel me to set all my novels aside, but “The Indifferent Stars Above” certainly did. Within the first few pages I was spellbound. I had to know how Sarah, a young woman newly married to her childhood sweetheart, would end up on top of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the dead of winter, starving and forced to do unspeakable things in order to survive.

“The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride” tells the story of the Donner Party from the perspective of newlyweds Sarah Graves and Jay Fosdick. In April of 1846 the couple joined Sarah’s family as they journeyed west from Illinois to the promised land of California. After falling behind schedule they joined a wagon train led by George Donner, hoping to make up for lost time by attempting a “shortcut” across the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert. But this route took three weeks longer than the customary way, and when they reached the Sierra Nevada at the end of October a snowstorm blocked their way through what is now called Donner Pass. What followed was a harrowing tale of heartbreak and horror. Many members of the party eventually resorted to cannibalism.

Author Daniel James Brown does a remarkable job of weaving historical evidence with modern science, creating a riveting tale that reads more like a novel than a work of history. He goes into impressive detail, explaining everything from the strain of malaria that Sarah’s family suffered from in Illinois, to the different kinds of flour available to emigrant families as they stocked up for their journey. Until I read this book I hadn’t understood the exact ways in which hypothermia acts upon the body, or realized that hyperthermia (overheating) was a common condition when struggling through 12 feet of snow. Brown’s descriptions of the trials people endured while trying to reach California are vivid:

In places they resorted to using a windlass to drag wagons… up steep slopes. At a place called Devils Gate, the rope hoisting one of the wagons broke near the windlass. Men rushed to support the wagon, grabbing at the spokes of the wheels and the planked sides, trying to hold it against the pull of gravity. But gravity won. The oxen bellowed and pawed frantically but futilely at the loose talus on the slope. They began to lose ground. The wagon accelerated, sliding down the slope, dragging the wide-eyed and still bellowing oxen with it. The men had to jump free of the rig to save their lives. Then it hurtled over a precipice at the bottom of the slope, pulling the oxen over the edge two by two.

Later, as the emigrants struggled to survive in the frozen Alder Creek Valley, Brown describes their situation thus:

They began to grow gaunt. Their eyes began to sink deeper into their faces. Their fingers grew boney…. And as all these transformations took place, they began to peer into one another’s increasingly angular faces with a growing sense of alarm and incredulity.

Poetic, haunting and deeply informative “The Indifferent Stars Above” brings history to life, taking you step-by-step through the physiological and psychological conditions that eventually caused once-civilized people to draw lots in order to see who would become dinner. This book is a must read.