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I just finished reading it for the second time. After 12 years, I found this book again. A friend lent me this book right after I got married. I read it quickly; it was gripping. I had to return the book, so I memorized the title--Follow the River. Through the years, I often thought of the incredible woman in this story. I had looked it up at the library a couple of times and watched the used bookstores, but had never come across it. Finally, late this winter, I searched Amazon for it. And surprise! I found it. I hurriedly ordered it and a few other books and three days later was reading Follow the River for my second time. It's not too many a novel that I remember 12 years after reading it, but this is historical fiction at its best!
Follow the River is based on a true story. A woman, Mary Ingles, is living on the frontier during the French and Indian War. Indians raid her settlement taking her sister-in-law, two sons, a gentleman, and herself captive. They travel from West Virginia clear to a spot near present-day Cincinnati, Ohio. On the way she gives birth to a little girl and earns the respect of one of the chiefs. She also tries to memorize the trip in case she gets a chance to escape.
Once at the Indian settlement, she makes friends with a sturdy Dutch woman that has just run the gauntlet. Mary is taken, with some others including the Dutch woman, to a salt lick to gather salt. During the autumn days spent there she and the Dutch woman escape. Regarded as lost, they are not followed. Since she had paid attention on her trip into the wilds, Mary knew that she must follow the river. With only a hatchet and two blankets, Gretel and Mary travel along the Ohio and New Rivers. The book supplies a map of their trip.
Mary's one driving force is her love for Will, her husband. She must get back to Will. Gretel's goal is food, which leads to trouble for Mary. Mary's persistence and single-mindedness and just plain guts get her through horrible conditions and depravation. She and Gretel almost starve to death, but they do make it back--even through snow.
The book is graphic in places--possibly too graphic. It's not a pretty, flowery, rose-colored-glasses-type of book. The raid at the beginning of the book is brutal and horrific to me. Mary is in very bad shape and almost lost her life many times on the trip. Sexual content is minimal and confined to her memories of her husband. Some folks wouldn't want children reading this type of info; that's why I put this in the "mature content" section. However, the book is far, far from x-rated.
I really think that this book is a good book. It shows a strong woman doing the impossible. It truly seems like an impossible trip. But Mary Ingles actually made this journey over 200 years ago. I'm surprised that there aren't more books written about her. What a heroine! At times, my heart bled for Mary, she had a rough time, but at other times all I could do was be totally impressed by her. She is a great female role model, though she does make some choices that some of us wouldn't or couldn't make. Reading about Mary helped me to realize the incredible will that people can have and how a person's will to do something should never be underestimated!
As I read some of the reviews by others at the Amazon.com site, I was surprised to find that there's a public school teacher that makes this book required reading for her twelfth grade class!
You
can buy your own copy of this book from Amazon.com at a discount!