The Personal History of Rachel Dupree: A Novel

About this book

An award-winning novel with incredible heart about life on the prairie as its rarely been seen When Rachel hired help in a Chicago boardinghouse falls in love with Isaac the boardinghouse owners son he makes her a bargain: hell marry her but only if she gives up her 160 acres from the Homestead Act so he can double his share. She agrees and together they stake their claim in the forebodingly beautiful South Dakota Badlands. Fourteen years later in the summer of 1917 the cattle are bellowing with thirst. It hasnt rained in months and supplies have dwindled. Pregnant and struggling to feed her family Rachel is isolated by more than just geography. She is determined to give her surviving children the life they deserve but she knows that her husband a fiercely proud former Buffalo Soldier will never leave his ranch: black families are rare in the West and land means a measure of equality with the white man. Somehow Rachel must find the stren