Tributary
By Barbara K. Richardson
Torrey House Press, 2012
ISBN: 978-937226-04-6
$15.95, 348pp.
Reviewed by Eduardo Rey Brummel
This second novel by Barbara K. Richardson was finalist for this year’s Willa Literary Award in Historical Fiction. It begins in 1859, when a Mormon Brother finds six-year-old Clair Martin, orphaned and abandoned in Honeyville, Utah, and brings her with him to Brigham City. There the Mormon Elders find a place for her, assisting an aging widow. From birth, Clair’s face has borne a distinguishing mark, “the purple-red stain that covers my left cheek and flutes down my neck like I’ve been scalded.”
Once she’s a teenager, Clair begins reading from the Book of Mormon, “seeking solace for my loneliness,” but finding instead:
Men killed and men died. I couldn’t pronounce their names, much less fathom their workings for or against God’s will on this continent. … Dread swelled in my heart, until I reached the page where God cursed Nephi’s wicked brother with dark skin. Then the scriptures spoke right to me. Then the scriptures became clear. God cursed the idolatrous Laman with dark skin to keep his kind separated …
I was so marked. … God clearly despised me. I’d earned all of the unfairness of my life. The most sacred book on earth showed me my place.
Is it any surprise, then, that Clair forges a strong-willed temperament, railing against both God and the misogynist polygamous men all around her? God has forsaken her, boys at dances do likewise; she knows her father left her, and she suspects her mother did the same. Thus, Clair discerns her solitary place in the world.
Yet still, she is determined to find a better place, and be among better people than those in Brigham City. Her searching for her mother’s family leads her to New Orleans, which turns out to be a dead end; but she finds a hospital job and stays on until a better position opens at a Mississippi resort hotel. Some years later, a series of letters from a dear Brigham City friend causes Clair to move to a ranch in Idaho’s still wide-open country. This sheep ranch, she hopes, with no cities or herds of people around, might finally be the sort of place that’ll allow a strong-minded and willed woman the space to live her own life.
But of course, life is not perfect – often not smooth enough for long enough. Even in the isolated and severe Idaho desert, troubles still find ways to thrive and flourish.
And so it goes.
Barbara K. Richardson doesn’t seem to do much, writing-wise, for Clair Martin needs no assistance in telling us her story. She’s a force of nature, much like so-called “acts of God.” But unlike the tornadoes, earthquakes and lightning bolts of God, you fall for Clair. As often happens, the crustiness of her outside protects her embracing and compassionate inside. I kept my next-door neighbors awake, continually cheering Clair on.
