Author: Dana Fuller Ross

Published: 1979

Mood: If life has been super mentally demanding and all you want is the Western equivalent of a beach read.

After reading the first chapter of Independence!, I understood three things about this book:

• It’s predictable
• It’s romanticized
• It’s written by a dude

When I grabbed this warped, water-damaged paperback from the dwindling Western shelf at a thrift store, I had assumed that author “Dana” Fuller Ross was a woman for the sole reason that “there is no Dana, only Zuul.”

But Ross (a pseudonym of writer Noel B. Gerson) made it super-clear in those early pages that what I was now reading was the work of yet another male Western author who describes every single female character by the shape of her figure.

The popular ones all have high, firm boobs and small waists. They also have one of two personalities: fiery-tempered vixen who needs to be tamed, or quietly resilient prairie flower who needs to be rescued. And conveniently for everyone in Independence!, there’s an available man to tame or rescue every single woman.

But a funny thing happened to me a few chapters later – I got hooked. This historical romance disguised as a hardy Western is just so irritating and LIKABLE. And it shouldn’t be, especially for someone like me! The events in the story are terribly convenient, the outcome is obvious from the get-go, and it’s full of stereotypes and romantic fiction tropes.

AND YET. Independence! is also satisfying, low-effort entertainment with decent historic detail. It’s like the Sweet Valley Saga of Western fiction. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m on board with this wagon train and its next adventures.

Independence! is about a wagon train of pioneers bound for Oregon in 1837. The train departs from Connecticut, and the first goal is to reach Independence, Missouri. Hence the title.

Right away, you get a heaping portion of romantic tension and drama among the assembled characters.

• Sam is the noble and stoic guide, chosen by his personal friend, President Andrew Jackson
• Claudia is a pretty, fiery woman who likes to wear fancy dresses and makeup, and has constant tension with Sam
• Cathy is Claudia’s pretty, demure sister who is married to a tyrant, and develops a crush on Sam’s friend Whip Holt (yes, that is his name)
• Tonie is a pretty, fiery woman who can hunt and ride like a man, and has a secret connection to Russia
• Terence is a young man dying of consumption, who befriends the shunned Lena and her illegitimate child
• Ted is a hulking, stoic blacksmith and former murderer, the perfect match for Cindy, a former prostitute
• Henry is rich and British, so he’s the villain because the Americans REALLY hate the British
• Dr. Martin and Baron Von Thalman are two handsome, well-mannered, single older men who get just enough focus to make them viable options for any women who are still unmatched by the later chapters
• Stalking Horse is a token Cherokee warrior and scout, blood brother to Sam and Whip, who seems to exist just so everyone can say the pioneers were friends with the Natives

The length of the trip, and the fact that every stop provides the opportunity for the author to add new characters into his narrative, keep the tension tightly wound. There are lots of little challenges and resolutions and sub-stories within the overarching plot, so something new is always happening. It’s ADHD gold.

The appeal lies in Ross’s easygoing storytelling. It’s not a literary masterpiece by any stretch of the phrase, but it’s got good descriptions and attention to historic detail. Like a female-driven knock-off of L’Amour.

Seriously, I was surprised at how much time Ross devoted to the female perspectives in this book – it’s much more of a ‘for the ladies’ Western than most others I’ve read. The women are actually smart and extremely tenacious, and a few wind up quite heroic… which almost makes up for the shamelessly vapid things they do whenever they aren’t being smart and tenacious.

For example:

• Claudia tells Tonie that the only way to get a man is to start wearing dresses and makeup
• Tonie pulls a Sandy in Grease and wears said dresses and makeup for the man in question
• Claudia picks fights with Tonie because she thinks Sam likes her, and is instantly jealous of any woman who Sam is friendly with
• Tonie agrees to be a Russian spy to save the lives of her parents, then almost immediately after joining the train abandons her mission, and then ultimately decides that since she hasn’t seen her parents in years (because they sent her away for her own protection) they aren’t really her parents anymore, and she’s now a proud American so it’s all good

The male protagonists of Independence! are all written in the way that a man probably thinks a woman wants men to be. They’re all closet romantics, sort of. Sure, they believe women should look pretty but not be promiscuous, and make babies but never become less attractive. But they also all want wives, are intensely loyal to one woman in the story, are good listeners, and inexplicably get flustered trying to talk to women.

By the end of the book you can rest assured that no shrew is left untamed, and every maiden has her hero.

Do I feel bad about enjoying a story that casually side-steps the massive impact of its driving force, Manifest Destiny? ABSOLUTELY. Feeling bad and ingesting entertainment are often a swirling spiral in my brain. That’s why I continue to buy from Indigenous-owned brands whenever I write reviews that strike that particular chord.

Independence! is the first book in the 24-volume Wagons West series, which was published between 1979 and 1989. Yes, I already found a copy of the next book in the series. I’ll be reading on an actual beach in the near future. Stay tuned.