Lone Women

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / LaValle, Victor	4-week checkout	On Hold Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / LaValle, Victor	4-week checkout	In transit
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / LaValle, Victor	4-week checkout	Due 05-08-2024
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / LaValle, Victor	4-week checkout	Due 05-24-2024
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / LaValle, Victor	4-week checkout	Due 05-19-2024

"Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It's locked at all times. Because when the trunk is opened, people around her start to disappear... The year is 1914, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, and forced her to flee her hometown of Redondo, California, in a hellfire rush, ready to make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will be one of the "lone women" taking advantage of the government's offer of free land for those who can cultivate it-except that Adelaide isn't alone. And the secret she's tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing keeping her alive"-- Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Amazing alternative western submitted by redwood on July 4, 2023, 8:48am This novel, a bonus Montana read, was outside my comfort zone in a lot of ways. It’s a page-turner with monsters, elements of horror, violence. Yet it also had some of my favorite things—delicious prose, astute observations about land and environmental affect, a setting in the American West. I’m glad I gave this a try, because I ended up loving it! It was scary, but not too scary for me.

In 1915, Adelaide Henry, having set fire to the only home she’s known, with her parents’ already-dead bodies inside, is skipping town with nothing but an unbelievably heavy steamer trunk (LaValle unravels the mystery not only of what is inside, but of its true nature, slowly over the course of the novel). Needing a fresh start, she leaves to homestead in Montana, spurred on by a newspaper clipping about another Black “lone woman” making it there.

Her journey to her claim outside Big Sandy is already haunting—the steamer trunk gets opened, and the family of five she was traveling with mysteriously disappears. Adelaide buys all their things and uses them to establish her homestead. Slowly, she befriends other “lone women” in the area—Mrs. Price, a schoolteacher without a school, and her spunky son Sam; Bertie Brown, brewer and the only other Black woman in the area; Fiona Wong, Bertie’s partner who is searching for her father’s grave. These characters are standouts. While Adelaide is the primary protagonist, chapters come from the point of view as other characters, including some antagonists, as well, forming a well-rounded narrative that methodically reveals information.

I don’t want to give spoilers, so I won’t go into much of the plot, but it constantly kept me guessing, combining well-researched history (yes, there really were single woman of color homesteaders in Montana) with satisfying twists that reframed how I thought of the characters, but also the West, horror, and the western. The nature of the monster is multivalent and a bit inscrutable to me, and I’ll keep thinking about it. And I wondered how LaValle would possibly stick the ending of this novel, but he did—it was both horrifying and satisfying. Absolutely recommend.