The Firekeeper: A Narrative of the New York Frontier

By Robert Moss

Book Overview

An epic adventure based on the extraordinary historical story of Sir William Johnson and the author's dreams of a Mohawk "woman of power" who lived three centuries ago.

An epic adventure based on the extraordinary historical story of Sir William Johnson and the author's dreams of a Mohawk "woman of power" who lived three centuries ago.

"Robert Moss is a writer of considerable skill. In The Firekeeper, he shows a talent for accurate historical detail and an ability to recreate the past, both as it was and as it might have been. To read The Firekeeper is to be transported to another time and place, and leave it measurably enlightened." - James A. Michener

"The Firekeeper depicts with accurate and exciting detail the time of the French and Indian Wars. Through the fictionalized lives of historical individuals, Sir William Johnson and Catherine Weissenberg, and memorable, almost mythical characters such as the Iroquois shaman, Island Woman, and Ade, a former slave, the narrative springs to life. The characters, even the minor ones, are clearly-drawn in this fast-paced tale, and the pages keep turning as we learn about the lives of the original inhabitants of this land, and of the early European settlers. This fascinating historical novel offers just the right mix: an involving story which imparts a deeper undersanding." - Jean M. Auel, author of The Clan of the Cave Bear

"Some rare novels defy labels. The Firekeeper is such a book. An intricately detailed historical novel....a mystical journey, a breathtaking adventure tale, and a passionate exploration of the human heart. This is a book to savor when you truly want to lose yourself in another world." -Morgan Llywelyn, author of Lion of Ireland

"In Moss's vibrant docu-novel, the American colonial frontier is aflame during the 1700s as imperial rivalry pits colonists against British and French armies and their Indian allies.... Moss backs his vigorous adventure story with detailed research, summarized in extensive source notes." - Publishers Weekly

"I admire Robert Moss's skill in weaving an elaborate web around his larger-than-life characters. In The Firekeeper, readers are swept back into the eighteenth century to the veritable fusion of our country's diversity. An epic adventure of William Johnson and the Mohawks. I found the story so good it was hard to do much until I had read all of it." - Anna Lee Waldo, author of Sacajawea

Robert Moss is a novelist, journalist, historian, and lifelong dream explorer. His fascination with the dreamworlds springs from his early childhood in Australia, where he survived a series of near-death experiences and first encountered the ways of a Dreaming people through his friendship with Aborigines. For many years he has taught and practiced Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanic techniques. His many books include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamgates, Dreamways of the Iroquois, and The Secret History of Dreaming. His novels include the three-volume cycle of the Iroquois, The Firekeeper, The Interpreter, and Fire Along the Sky.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1438429347
• ISBN13: 9781438429342
• Release Date: July 2009
• Publisher: Excelsior Editions/State University of New Yo
• Length: 513 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Wonderful story, and mostly factual

I love this book, and I especially love it because most of it is fact. The author tells you in the back of the book what he inserted to make the story flow, what he could not find from his research. The story holds your interest, especially if you are interested in the time when the Europeans first occupied this land.

The Firekeeper is a riveting blend of history, adventure and dream wisdom

The Firekeeper is an evocative romp of a tale, spanning the eighteenth century from Ireland to New England. It gives both Native American and White perspectives, showing how the two cultures intertwined and clashed in rich and heartbreaking human drama. Moss creates a colorful, vivid portrait of Sir William Johnson (a multitudinous man in every sense of the word), and describes the hardships endured by women on the frontier with sensitivity and realism. I was completely drawn into the narrative, feeling myself there in direct experience. I loved the novel and was sorry when it ended. I came to The Firekeeper after reading Moss' later books on dreaming, all of which I highly recommend. I was so impressed with Dreamways of the Iroquois and its story of Island Woman, that it led me to seek out Firekeeper. Now at the top of my book stack are The Interpreter and Fire Along the Sky. In my experience as a reader, Robert Moss is an unusually talented author. His skills as a historian, researcher, storyteller, writer, teacher, dreamer, and healer combine to create books that are both a delight to read and a necessity for our times.

Dreams Along the Mohawk

A wonderful book by a singularly marvellous author! The best two books (along with FIRE ALONG THE SKY) I've read in years. As rich as any historical novel ever written. Travel to a vanished world in upstate New York for a few hours. And discover that Colonial America was a vibrant and violent time. America's first frontier--Too bad it's overshadowed by our preoccupation with the 19th-century Western mythology. The 18th century was far more fascinating!

THE FIREKEEPER is "the dream" of Sir William Johnson by Wanda Burch, author of SHE WHO DREAMS, www.w

In the dry, often dull, pages of thousands of eighteenth century documents, the researcher and student of history meets--in his or her studies of upstate New York--the names of characters who shaped the cultural and geographic boundaries of the lands bordering and expanding beyond the Mohawk River into the thick forests of the eighteenth century western frontier. Principal among those names is that of Sir William Johnson and his intricately woven web of clients, agents, military personnel, merchants, commissaries, politicians, tenants, and tradesmen, all backdropped against the powerful confederacy of the Six Nations. In THE FIREKEEPER, Robert Moss plunges beneath the carefully penned words of conferences, negotiations, land deals, and the giving and receiving of thousands of belts and strings of wampum and chests of gifts to find the phrase, the inuendo, the pause, the missing sentence that allows one to grasp the beauty and power of the raw courage, stamina, and charisma of the men and women who were the real heroes of the New York frontier. William Johnson held the legal responsibility for the negotiation of Indian affairs for the Six Nations and proved the extraordinary confidence and credit in which he was held by the Six Nations in his care and use of the magnificent symbols of Indian power and authority--the belts, the sacred calumets, and the dreams. In the dreaming culture of the Six Nations, William Johnson was caught up in a delicate balance between the magical world of spirit and soul in which he donned the antlers of the forest stag and the competitive white world where wills and cultures clashed in battle and on paper. Woven in and among the threads of the fascinating story of THE FIREKEEPER is the even more powerful story of the women in William Johnson's world--the young Palatine girl who pursued her dreams across the sea from bondage to the purchased freedom of a frontier pulsing with the clash of desire and spirit, of the fusing of the sacred and profane in a forest peopled with refugees from her own country and with the magical dreaming women of power of the Six Nations, of the Mohawks, women with names like Island Woman and Sparrow, all of whom would share in the romance and spirit of William Johnson's world, molded from the dreams of many cultures, a magical journey of spirit and soul brought to life by Robert Moss through the pages of THE FIREKEEPER.