Tame the Wild Land is a book after my own heart. As a descendant of French Canadians from the 17th and 18th centuries, I’ve always been a lover of the period of history those ancestors lived in and have wanted to know more about it, but while most of what I’ve read has been about Quebec and the Great Lakes region, I have known little about the other French settlements, especially in Louisiana. This novel filled a huge gap in Franco-American history for me, and was also highly entertaining, exactly what historical fiction should be.
The author, Patrick Shannon, has cast Louis of St. Denis as the main character, a man he had never heard of, but should have. Shannon is also a descendant of St. Denis. As an author, I have used my family’s history as source material for my own historical fiction, so I fully understand why Shannon would make that choice, but I also know the pitfalls that can be found. Shannon avoids all those pitfalls, straying completely from any romantic or exaggerated ideas of his parentage to tell a story of heroism, adversity, hardship and ill-fated love.
Louis de St. Denis was born in Quebec but came to Louisiana to help a struggling French settlement survive and prosper. The novel begins in 1700, the year Louis arrives in Louisiana, in what is now Biloxi Bay, near the mouth of the Mississippi, and where he founded a settlement the year before and has been fighting. The novel is divided into two sections, the first documenting how the settlement struggles to exist during its first six years. A big part of the challenge is dealing with the local “Indians,” a term Shannon doesn’t shy away from for the more politically correct “Native American.” In fact, I admired that Shannon didn’t try to insert modern sensibilities into the story or into the mouths of his characters like many modern novelists do. Instead, he lets his characters be representative of their historical counterparts and the beliefs and prejudices of the time. I found the interactions the French characters had with the Indians fascinating; Not only did I not realize that much of the area (Alabama, Natchez, etc.) was named after the local Indian tribes, but I found the Indian customs pretty awful. At one point a cacique dies, and it is customary to have forty Indians killed in order to go to their deaths with him; when a French priest tries to prevent this unnecessary murder, a war nearly ensues.
The Indians also become a main motivator for the second part of the novel. To keep the colony alive, the French realize they must trade with the Spanish, even though the Spanish have long refused to do so. A door to possible trade is opened when a Spanish priest, denied missionary assistance by his own government, writes to the French asking them to send priests to help him convert the indigenous tribes. Louis de St. Denis heads this mission, hoping it will allow him to introduce trade with the Spanish.
A series of complications occur during Louis’s mission, including being taken prisoner by the Spanish, being viewed as a traitor by the French, and falling in love with a Spanish girl more than twenty years his junior, an unfortunate union that leads to the opposition of the girl’s family.
I won’t reveal how the story ends, but the novel left me wanting to know more about the history of Louisiana, Texas, and the French and Spanish presence there in the early 18th century, as well as more about Louis of St. Denis and other characters. celebrities like Cadillac and LaSalle, who also influence the novel.
Shannon’s style is refreshing and entertaining for the reader. Instead of bogging us down with historical details, which many well-known historical novelists do, including James Michener and Ken Follett, Shannon recalls that her first job is to entertain us and tell a story about her characters. He is sparse on description, but generous in writing dialogue that moves the story along, while he sprinkles in occasional narrative passages to draw the reader to the next scene. She reminded me quite a bit of Evelyn Waugh’s style in this respect.
I congratulate Shannon on this excellent novel, and look forward to reading more of her work, as well as exploring more of Franco-American history now that she has piqued my interest. Ultimately, a good historical novelist should not educate so much as open the door for his reader to want more information about the historical period in which the novel takes place. Shannon has done very well indeed.
