READERS GUIDE

Questions and Topics for Discussion

1. One of America’s foundational myths, the mid-nineteenth-century migration
to Oregon and California, has often been misrepresented or romanticized.
What popular impressions does Fisher strive to correct in her
account of this journey? Does the character of Lucy Mitchell in A Sudden
Country conform to the typical representation of a pioneer woman? Does
MacLaren fit the popular notion of the “mountain man”? What elements of
Fisher’s re-envisioning most surprised you?

2. How does the Mitchells’ first meeting with MacLaren on the night of
the storm (pp. 48–53) reveal, in miniature, the complex dynamics that will
come to shape the story of this group together?

3. When MacLaren arrives to join the company at last, Lucy asks him
why he came (p. 90), and he responds by asking her the same question. Does
either person seem to understand why each has sought the other? Which of
their unconnected or unconscious responses might offer clues?

4. In the early chapter “A True Wife,” what do we learn about Lucy’s
aesthetics and attitudes that might help explain the isolation she later feels
among the other women of her party? Later, she observes: “And now, if
some believed her strange and some believed her silent, if some believed her
mean with her affections, it was not because she thought she was better
than they were. It was because she did not trust that she was anyone at all”


(pp. 133–134). Do you think this loss of confidence is typical of middle age,
or has Lucy suffered a kind of erasure of identity particular to her?

5. Israel’s decision to take his family west, and Lucy’s reluctance to go,
bring into focus their sharply different attitudes toward the relative benefits
of risk and safety.To what degree is either of them able to see the other’s position
or question his or her own? At what points in the story do Israel and
Lucy appear to bend somewhat toward the other’s view?

6. How do certain inanimate objects, like the teacups, the corset and the
man’s saddle Lucy rides in, all serve to symbolize the transforming power of
this westward journey?

7. Is Israel or MacLaren the more virtuous man, in Lucy’s view? Do you
agree? For which man do you have more sympathy? Is the sympathy of
others earned by virtue, or by something else? If earned by something else,
then what?

8. Do your impressions of Native American culture agree with any of the
varied (and sometimes contradictory) pictures of the individuals and tribes
represented in A Sudden Country? Were you surprised by any of Fisher’s depictions?

9. While among the Pawnee, Lucy asks MacLaren, “With what morality
do they temper their desires?” and accuses the Pawnee of being shameless, of
doing what they please (p. 114).MacLaren has suffered equal disdain in native
societies that see whites as people who “roam without reason, claiming
things that could not be owned” (p. 115). Do the moralities of different cultures
seem purely arbitrary? Why have neither of the moral notions cited
here (the goodness of Victorian restraint, and the goodness of intransient
communities and common ownership) survived in this country to the present
day?

10. A Sudden Country portrays love and marriage in many lights. In Lucy’s
eyes,what is love, and how far should it affect one’s actions? How did her ex-
pectations and experiences of love differ with Luther, Israel, and MacLaren?
What does she conclude at last? Do you believe her? Do you agree?

11. Lise is an elusive character in the novel. How and why does Mac-
Laren’s perception of her, and of the nature of their relationship, change over
the course of his journey?

12. Do you agree with MacLaren’s intuition, that the “borrowed genius”
(p. 302) of the Christian faith has done more than anything to free Europeans
from the bonds of geography and community, and to make them a
“wandering and conquering” people? What evidence comes to mind to support
or refute this idea?

13. Early in A Sudden Country, Laurent warns that all the evils of the world
spring from sorrow.Toward the end, Eliza Spalding maintains that “no good
comes from fear.No morality is governed by it” (p. 343).Her assertion that
we “must live by Him in love, and in the knowledge that our selfish actions
oft prove fatal,” is an attitude that MacLaren has dismissed already as “blind
charity,” though his own worst actions could easily be read as proofs of her
conviction.Why does he come to believe that Laurent’s answer is the right
one? Is it too simple an answer, or brilliant in its simplicity? What, as
MacLaren understands it, is the “solution” to sorrow?

14. Do Americans act in the world today much as they did in 1847, or are
their actions and ambitions significantly different?