After Laura: A Memoir of Healing and Repair
By Christian Scharen
When Christian Scharen's father died, he knew he finally would have to face his complicated relationship to his father—and his father's famous American pioneer story.
After Laura: A Memoir of Healing and Repair
Forthcoming Memoir
When Christian Scharen's father died, he knew he finally would have to face his complicated relationship to his father—and his father's famous American pioneer story. His childhood in Montana and Wyoming was formed by the pioneer tales of Laura Ingalls Wilder, but he'd never grappled with the fact that they were his family stories, too.
He resolved to drive west from Pepin, Wisconsin, where his great-grandmother Lottie and her double-cousin Laura were both born in 1867. He stopped to visit the land where the Ingalls homesteaded as well as sites important to the Indigenous peoples whose land it was prior to the pioneers' arrival.
Along the way, he discovered the awful truth of land theft and genocide perpetrated against Native Nations, a truth his own family stories elide.
At turns loving and heart-wrenching, this book looks for—and finds—hard won healing with a father, even as it explores repair required for healing a nation's relationship with its original occupants and with the land itself.
Deeply personal and yet a bracingly honest exploration of the injustice at the root of American pioneer mythology and of America itself.
Endorsements
"A deeply personal and necessary book." — [Endorsement 1]
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