If I had lived in Missouri back in the 1800s, I would have been stuck there all my life, despite the unhealthy climate. I would never have been as adventurous and brave as the folks in this novel who traveled in covered wagons across half a continent to reach a promised land in Oregon, facing dangers from Indians, treacherous terrain, and uncertain weather all along the way.
Guthrie focuses here on one such family, but also includes others accompanying them in the wagon train, to provide a complete picture of the westward migration. The account seems so completely true to life and representative of the kinds of people who would undertake such a journey that one could even believe that he had experienced the journey himself. Some among the travelers are generous and principled, some are power hungry, some are vengeful, and some are simply totally unprepared for the hardships that had to be endured.
Guthrie's writing is extraordinary, by turns realistic and poetic. The Way West won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1950. I highly recommend it.
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