Last Child (review)
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She's Rosalie to her Scottish father and Last Child to her Mandan people, and she finds her two identities are growing increasingly incompatible. Her story opens in 1837 when a steamboat pulls into Fort Clark on the upper Missouri, its freight full of smallpox. Rosalie's father, Angus, dresses down the apparent captain for his foolishness and, in a moment of heated rage, shoots at him. The bullet misses, but his erstwhile target (who is in fact not the captain but a mad crewmate who mutinied for control just downriver) wants revenge. When, several days later, Rosalie is traveling with her father on a business venture, the "captain" sets a band of Dakota warriors after them and kidnaps Rosalie. The story turns into a survival adventure when Rosalie escapes but must find her way back to the Mandan village; when she eventually returns, she finds that smallpox has destroyed most of the Mandan people. Set against the historical backdrop of the 1837 smallpox epidemic, which nearly wiped out the Mandan altogether, this is a deftly composed tale of identity, adventure, and vengeance. The novel is presented from Rosalie's point of view, with occasional interruptions by Angus' journal entries; the two voices work in perfect balance, both offering different perspectives and supporting each other's information. Rosalie's character is multifaceted; she is inwardly introspective yet outwardly hot-tempered and rude, and part of the novel's complexity comes in [End Page 286] trying to understand her character. Her struggles with race are thoughtfully represented; she references confusion from the very beginning, but her questions and reflections are all the more complicated by the role that the smallpox virus plays in white-Mandan relations. Ultimately, Rosie must face the fact that whatever race she chooses for herself will fall secondary to the one those around her dictate for her in a given circumstance, and this realization adds even further depth to her confusion. An epilogue, which links this novel to Spooner's previous title (Daniel's Walk, BCCB 11/01), timeline, historical notes, selected bibliography, and glossary are included.
