Author's
Note
Once Pioneer Jews: A New Life in the Far West was
launched, I turned to the untold history, the part available
only in fiction — the inner lives of these pioneers
as they progressed from newcomers to westerners. Facts, family
lore, impressions — personal and borrowed — inspired
a dynamic array of characters. Responding to life in the kaleidoscopic
West, they developed traits perennially assigned to the legendary
westerner. Before my characters dragged me through the erratic,
painful, tradition- and life-threatening circumstances they
endured, I would have dismissed those adjectives as overblown.
As I would have words like exhilarating, energizing, uplifting,
until those same characters experienced the rupture of age-old
constraints in a region where everyone had to change, and
change was as desired as it was unavoidable.
|
Author's Note
