The Long Journey Home: A Novel of the Post-Civil War Plains

By Laurel Means

A fascinating family saga set in the 1860s prairie of Minnesota and the Dakotas. Pioneer and Civil War veteran Henry Morgan sets out on a dramatic journey that takes him through mazes, river currents, down dangerous trails, and up against dead ends. From an unlikely beginning, Morgan's hasty marriage to the young and illiterate Agnes Guyette has unforeseen consquences. As they attempt to claim a government land grant two hundred miles away in Green Prairie, MN, they must fight local Indians, hostile wilderness, and desperados determined to steal their land. Filled with nonstop action and unexpected plot twists and turns, this novel is a roller coaster ride of action, intrigue and high adventure.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0897335694
• ISBN13: 9780897335690
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Home is Where the Heart Is

Although "The Long Journey Home" is certainly a love story, it's much more than that. Far more than boy meets girl, this story, as promised by its title, is a journey, and an adventure of Odyssean proportions. Author Laurel Means has written a major novel of the westward journey of thousands of Americans of the 19th Century, and on the way two such Americans find and lose love, then find it again. In between happy endings there's a journey that will tear the heart right out of your chest. When land was what the American government had most of and to get it developed was its greatest priority, vast tracts of acreage became a kind of G.I. Bill for veterans of the revolutionary and civil wars. Then, too, a national pastime for American shysters following both wars was to find ways to steal it from the veterans. That is one, but only one, of the intriguing plots in "The Long Journey Home." A novel chock-a-block with character development, where the good guys duke it out with the bad guys and win (but only afer three hundred pages of gut wrenching struggle and misadventure, crooked gamblers, alcoholism, and gambling addiction, stolen homesteads and hostile Sioux warriors). The truly wonderful part of this novel is that the author actually lets us see the characters grow and develop. They are not just cardboard figures playing good and bad parts. Many novels portray characters of some complexity, but Ms. Means actually presents characters who grow and change. In addition to characterization, Laurel Means has carefully plotted this narrative with credible twists and turns to keep you turning pages and biting your nails. Readers will enjoy the visual map and the second wave of western land grants after the civil war, jumping off from Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, a migration to the west of big skies and the last of the great buffalo herds. In that process, the reader will experience travel in a conestoga, learn how to build one, how to pack one and how to live in one, fording rivers, and building log cabins. One is brought to a new appreciation of the army and the forts built to protect hapless travelers and settlers. Ms. Means scholarship is also to be congratulated for this work. Finally there's a satisfying quality about this book--the reader has grown with the characters and has applauded the victories and hissed the villains until the end. If not with glorious triumph, the denouement for these characters is earned, just and fair. There's something uncommonly satisfing about the earned achievement seen in this novel.

great story...made me want a sequel

This was a great story and I really liked most of the characters. There was one character I didn't like and truthfully that made the story even more real! The story and all of the descriptions of life around the story were great. There is tons to learn about life right after the Civil War; it was realy hard. I truly hope there is a sequel. When the book ended, I didn't want the story to end. So many more people to learn about!

How many bad choices can one man make?

How many bad choices can one man make? Henry spends most of the book being self-absorbed: focused on his land claim to the exclusion of his first family (we never do find out what happened to them), his friends AND his new young wife (he gives little thought to her through most of the book, until he needs her in order to clear his name), not to mention his new baby girl (who he snubs because she's not a boy). He vacillates between blaming others for his situation and realization that it's his OWN bad choices that got him where he is. It's good to show characters in all their faults, but I didn't get the feeling at the end of the book that Henry had really faced up to himself. The end was a bit too quickly wrapped up - a new family almost magically appearing for Henry - but by that time there's been enough death and I was happy to get something positive for Agnes if not for Henry. Although I was left thinking, man, I hope Agnes doesn't regret staying with this loser!

Hard to Put Down

The story has strong plot and a heroine who grows on one -- also a solidly constructed physical world makes one feel yes, the settler experience must have been very like that. I liked the allegorical use of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress as a subtle sub-text -- it connects the two parallel journeys (each chapter title a synonym for a different type of journey). And that's a great last line. The book would make a great movie! By "Boatman," Toronto, Canada

A powerful story- well told

Ms. Mean's has written a wonderful post-Civil War story of life on the plains. The novel strives for historical accuracy over easy stereotypes, realism over cheap sentimentality and the author makes the wise choice of portraying her characters as fully realized human beings with all of their strengths and weaknesses helping to shape their fate. A reader is given an accurate and inspired journey through the hardships and struggles of a family trying to survive in an often harsh and difficult environment. Within these struggles, there is also a tale of the power of hope, faith and love. Well done.