Introducing our Book of the Month for November -The Outlander by Gil Adamson




The Outlander by Gil Adamson


On a moonlit night in 1903, a mysterious young woman flees alone across the Canadian wilderness, one quick step ahead of her pursuers. Mary Boulton is nineteen years old, half mad, and widowed- by her own hand, Tearing through the forest with dogs howling in the distance , she is desperate, her nerves burning, and she is certain of one thing only – that her every move is being traced. As she plunges further and further away from civilisation, her path from retribution to redemption slowly unfurls.

Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (June 30, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0061491349
ISBN-13: 978-0061491344



I first discovered this book last year when it was featured by the BBC for its Radio 4 “Book at Bedtime.”

Firstly, I was intrigued by the title of the book . Then as I read on,this quirky, but courageous heroine stole my heart.I devoured the book in a couple of days, stopping only to make cups of my favourite Darjeeling !

It’s an amazing debut novel ,which took the author 10 years to write. She was born and raised in Toronto which makes her descriptions of the Canadian wilderness all the more authentic.


Looking forward to discussing this fascinating book with you. It will be open for discussion ~ 24th November.

Happy Reading

I went to the book store last night and picked up a copy of The Outlander and War and Peace (just in case). I read the first page while waiting for my kids to finish their book selections and I have the impression that I will really like this one. Too bad I haven't had a chance to get back to it yet!

I am swamped with reading material at the moment, but I hope to be ready to get this one in about a week because I am definitely intrigued and want to be part of the discussion. [I'm also still hoping for War and Peace and plan to see if I can snag a copy of that at the library book sale this weekend for next to nothing. Not sure I'll find it, but it doesn't hurt to check.]

What a great idea! I hope you find it, audiobooklover. You almost need to have a library bound edition of this book. I hope my binding holds up.

SPOILER WARNING

BOOK IS OPEN FOR DISCUSSION




The Outlander by Gil Adamson


On a moonlit night in 1903, a mysterious young woman flees alone across the Canadian wilderness, one quick step ahead of her pursuers. Mary Boulton is nineteen years old, half mad, and widowed- by her own hand, Tearing through the forest with dogs howling in the distance , she is desperate, her nerves burning, and she is certain of one thing only – that her every move is being traced. As she plunges further and further away from civilisation, her path from retribution to redemption slowly unfurls.

Book Group Questions

1. When we first meet the widow, Mary –she is remote and frightened, but has a strong survival instinct. At the end of the story she is different – how, and when did she start to change.
2. Why do you think Mary so disturbed – has she always been mad – or is she mad because of circumstances?
3. The quirky characters Mary meets on her journey have strange personalities- what did you make of the “oddness” of the characters?
4. What did you think of the Ridge runner –was he friend or foe?
5. The natural world elements are almost as much part of the novel as is Mary – did you feel this part of the story was well done?
6. Mary experiences so much loss – did this justify the ending and her words “Find Me”?


If you enjoyed reading this - you may also enjoy reading:

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier
The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
Serena by Ron Rash



Now that some of us have had the chance to read this month's selection, it would be interesting to see what we all made of it. Please post your thoughts, hopefully we'll all have different interpretations of the story.Don't be afraid to discuss, disagree and generally pull the book to pieces.The questions are just a guide -don't feel you have to answer any, or all of them - your opinions are what matters most....

Book is now open for discussion - a day early in view of Thanksgiving ....

Discuss your thoughts here

Happy book chat

Aha! I just saw the thread and thought it was a day early, so I'm glad to see that I had remembered that correctly. And, as it turns out, I finished the book last night, so once I get my thoughts together, I can comment.

Alas, I did not find a copy of War and Peace at the library sale despite asking 2 of the people working there if they had seen it. Maybe next sale. . .

As I mentioned on another thread, I finished this last night and I have to say that I didn't find the ending quite satisfying. I'm still processing and I feel like I might like the book more after reading people's thoughts about it and things I may have missed (that happens quite a bit when I discuss books with other people, which is one of the reasons why I love book discussions - both in-person and online). Back to the ending, I thought after all that time with William Moreland regretting leaving and looking for her and them finally getting back together and her telling him about the baby that they'd stay together and make a life in the wilderness. And, then she just left the next morning (alone, young and pregnant in the wilderness???) with a note "Find me"? I was impressed that she wrote her first words and that they were to him, but this is hardly a game with the danger she (and therefore her baby) would be facing.

I thought the Ridgerunner was basically a good guy who realized he loved her after he made the rash decision to leave. He's not perfect and he made a big mistake that could have cost her her life, but I think he needed to adjust to the idea of sharing his life with another person after being a loner for so long. I think during their time apart he made that adjustment and I think they could have a decent life together now (assuming he does find her, which I assume he will).

I think I found it a little hard to warm to Mary and to the story early on and part of that was because she was always referred to as "the widow" and not as Mary. I think that served to emotionally distance me as a reader from the character. The fact that she was mentally disturbed added to that too. She seemed to get her act together at least some later, so I think some of the madness likely came from circumstances, but she probably had a predisposition in that direction. Even by the end I didn't feel as "close" to the character as I do to characters in many other books (like the Outlander series).

As you can probably tell, my thoughts on this are pretty scattered at the moment. Maybe I'll clarify my own thoughts and post more later, or maybe other people's comments will help me to gain more focus. I look forward to reading what others have to say.

I really couldn't believe that she was 19 years old! Mary was really a pathetic character but what a survivor. She certainly had a guardian angel following her around just enough to survive the next disaster. I thought that rather than madness she was suffering from a severe case of Baby Blues/Depression. It occurred to me that Ridgerunner was also suffering from mental illness. Obviously, he was a hermit that could only tolerate human interaction in very small doses.

I, too, was confused about the ending. My only thought was that Mary realized that he could never settle down with her but could do the small doses of separation/reunion scenes so that she was creating a life game with him. Find Me, then I'll run away before you can't stand being around me, then find me again. Is that it? Or, did anyone else find a different meaning to it.

At the end, I think that she had recovered from her own depression and healed internally enough to go off on her own. But I agree with audio, the thought of her going off into the Yukon no less alone and pregnant is staggering.

Audio and Pauline thanks for starting off the discussion - and for sharing your thoughts so eloquently.

I also got the impression that Mary was suffering from a severe case of post partum depression- in her circumstances it's not surprising she went off the rails !

I think the use of the term "widow" is used to get a sense of emotional distance, and to place her within the impersonality of the landscape - I'm not sure we are meant to like Mary, but as the story progresses we can begin to sympathise with her circumstances....

The ending was ambiguous - when I read it - I felt like it could have been left deliberately left as a "cliffhanger" to prepare for a sequel, maybe - just my thoughts, for now

I think some of it was Post-partum depression, but not all of it. She was obviously unhappy to have been taken away from her home (and father and grandmother) and to be so lonely in that cabin in the middle of nowhere. She saw few people, had a husband who was none-too-warm-and-loving, whom she knew was cheating on her (and stealing her few things to give his mistresses) and who had gotten them into a lot of debt (gambling, right?). I think she was lonely and somewhat depressed even before the baby and she hoped the baby would give her someone to love and care for and then the baby died too and that pushed her further over the edge.

Also, was there some sign of instability even before that? I thought it might have started before her marriage even, but I can't remember for sure (it's a niggling feeling, but I can't recall any details).

I considered whether there might be a sequel too. I think it is definitely open for that possibility, but I'm not completely sure that I'd jump to read it (unless people here tell me it's very good).

Hi again.

I was thinking a bit more and thought I'd toss a few random thoughts/questions out there.

Early in the book, I had assumed that Mary's husband had been physically abusive and that she killed him in self-defense, but by the end, it seems that that was not the case. It did seem to be a clear case of murder when she shot him, not something done while he was hitting her, or afterward when she was bruised and killed him while he slept or something. He wasn't a great husband: he cheated on her including impregnating another woman, he stole some of what little she had to give to his mistress(es), he left her alone a lot when she was lonely, he wasn't warm or appreciative of her, and he built up debts, mostly if not entirely through gambling. But, he did teach her to shoot and apparently didn't physically abuse her, so it's a bit more complex than I assumed it might be early on in the book. In any case, I guess the point is that she really did murder him, right? No getting off by saying it was self-defense or something else?

And, about the brothers-in-law. At the end, the quieter one said something about them having done their duty by catching her once even though she escaped and mentioned "him" who will have to be satisfied with that. Did he mean their father? Was the father the one who sent the two of them after her? Or, did they choose to chase her on their own (and if so, what was meant at the end)? Somewhere in the middle, there had been a comment that one really wanted to find her and the other didn't seem as set on it. I assume the latter was the quieter one (Jude? the one who she shot, I think) because he was the one ready to give up. Do you think there was more to it for him? Did he think his younger brother had been a jerk who maybe got what he deserved and he wasn't so concerned about catching her? We get such brief snippets about them, but I was trying to understand their motivations/feelings about the situation.

Oh, and I meant to say that I kind of wanted to rate this a 3.5, but couldn't so I went with 3 because I didn't like it quite as much as some other books I'd rated a 4. I thought it was better than average and I liked the concept and the quirky characters. I just didn't get as emotionally involved with Mary (which I think was by design) and I didn't find the ending satisfying, so I didn't absolutely love it.

I agree that it was murder but am not sure if she was competent at that point. As you pointed out in the first post, it looks like she had some problems before marrying in that her grandmother seemed to be jealous of Mary's relationship with her father or maybe just really concerned that she was too strange to get married without a huge push. In any event, her GM seemed to be really aweful towards her and it looks like Mary decided to get her back by choosing this shyster the minute she met him.

Her home was obviously very far from where she was living or else I would think that she should have turned around and gone back there when she realized what the situation was. But, maybe she feared or couldn't bear the thought of returning to that GM?

It did seem that the father sent his 2 sons after her. There are references to his picture showing him to be really mean looking and it seemed that the one that she did end up shooting was dying anyway. I thought that she would get away from them with the avalanche but then that photographer had to take that picture and lead them back to her to start all over again. The older brother looked like he didn't want to return home to the father without her being arrested. Maybe it was a case of not allowing someone to get over on them rather than any paternal feeling because I didn't see any evidence of family closeness with this tribe.

This was not my typical read, but I did enjoy the story and the descriptive passages of the wilderness. At the beginning of the book, Mary was clearly mentally unstable, especially after the death of her baby. When the young pregnant girl visits, a spitting image of herself, Mary completely loses what bit of sanity she is holding onto. She is ready and willing to kill her husband when he returns home, no questions asked. The ending of the novel was a bit quirky, but I gather that now that Mary had her freedom back that she was not going to be controlled by anyone, including the Ridgerunner. It was awful of him to leave her stranded, having told her point blank that he would never leave her. So what does he do two days later -- he skeddadles. I found her taunt "Find me" as payback for having left her the first time around. If he wants to see her again, and his baby, he will have to make the effort.

I was sad about the death of the Reverend as he was a true friend to Mary and never judged her. I was hoping she would settle down with him, but it turns out she ventures off with Mac, the dwarf, with whom she has established a special bond even before the avalanche. They are two miscreants who survive against the odds. MacEchern will be her guide on the next journey and hopefully, the ginger-haired brothers will have given up their search for her. There is really nothing left to gain by aimlessly searching for her.

Did she leave with Mac? I thought he had already left and she was leaving all alone. But, I did think she would be heading to where he said he'd be because I agree that they formed a bond.