On Her Way Home
Description:
Arizona Territory, 1886-1887: When her visiting kid sister is abducted and charged with being an accomplice to murder, Frieda Levie Goldson, distraught and blaming herself, abandons her husband and children in the frontier border town of Dos Cacahuates, and sets out to find the missing girl.
On Her Way Home is the third of Rochlin's highly-acclaimed historical novels about a Jewish girl's life in the American West, the Desert Dwellers Trilogy. Frieda, the trilogy's headstrong heroine, is seduced by Bennie Goldson's promises of love and adventure and flees the constraints of her traditional Jewish San Francisco family's kosher boardinghouse for an adobe on the Arizona-Sonora border. After six years of life on the frontier, she has learned why the Arizona Territory is called "The Nation's Roughhouse." Now, on her own in a scruffy hotel, three jails, a makeshift law office, a Jewish-owned inn, two boisterous courtrooms, and at a bizarre trial and melodramatic execution, Frieda ultimately learns where and with whom she belongs.
For this third book in the series, Rochlin sought a plot that would force Frieda out of Dos Cacahuates, population 200 (maybe), and into the center of Arizona life: Prescott, territorial capital and political cesspool. The true story of a family murder and kidnapping, adjudicated there in 1886-1887 under outlandish circumstances, provided the framework. Frieda and other trilogy characters mix with personalities and events culled from Territorial records and period newspapers.
From this partly true, partly imagined tale, colorful characters emerge: an East Coast couple on a literary assignment, a Tenth Cavalry veteran, a power-crazed sheriff, a girl-chasing district attorney, an unpopular territorial governor, and Jews of every stripe. Things happen; the more incredible they seem, the truer they are.
A little-known but timely variation on the inexhaustible immigrant family theme develops, one that shifts from group action against societal inequities--the customary focus of ethnic and women's stories--to responsibility for one's own misdeeds. Stripped of illusions, some amends made, more to be made, Frieda ultimately finds the true meaning of home and family.
On Her Way Home is the third of Rochlin's highly-acclaimed historical novels about a Jewish girl's life in the American West, the Desert Dwellers Trilogy. Frieda, the trilogy's headstrong heroine, is seduced by Bennie Goldson's promises of love and adventure and flees the constraints of her traditional Jewish San Francisco family's kosher boardinghouse for an adobe on the Arizona-Sonora border. After six years of life on the frontier, she has learned why the Arizona Territory is called "The Nation's Roughhouse." Now, on her own in a scruffy hotel, three jails, a makeshift law office, a Jewish-owned inn, two boisterous courtrooms, and at a bizarre trial and melodramatic execution, Frieda ultimately learns where and with whom she belongs.
For this third book in the series, Rochlin sought a plot that would force Frieda out of Dos Cacahuates, population 200 (maybe), and into the center of Arizona life: Prescott, territorial capital and political cesspool. The true story of a family murder and kidnapping, adjudicated there in 1886-1887 under outlandish circumstances, provided the framework. Frieda and other trilogy characters mix with personalities and events culled from Territorial records and period newspapers.
From this partly true, partly imagined tale, colorful characters emerge: an East Coast couple on a literary assignment, a Tenth Cavalry veteran, a power-crazed sheriff, a girl-chasing district attorney, an unpopular territorial governor, and Jews of every stripe. Things happen; the more incredible they seem, the truer they are.
A little-known but timely variation on the inexhaustible immigrant family theme develops, one that shifts from group action against societal inequities--the customary focus of ethnic and women's stories--to responsibility for one's own misdeeds. Stripped of illusions, some amends made, more to be made, Frieda ultimately finds the true meaning of home and family.
We're an Amazon Associate. We earn from qualifying purchases at Amazon and all stores listed here.
Want a Better Price Offer?
Set a price alert and get notified when the book starts selling at your price.
Want to Report a Pricing Issue?
Let us know about the pricing issue you've noticed so that we can fix it.