An unforgettable novel about love and loyalty, homeland and belonging, and one woman’s courage in the face of the most punishing adversity.
THE PERSONAL HISTORY
OF RACHEL DUPREE
A Novel
Ann Weisgarber
Viking / Penguin Group (USA)
$25.95 Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-670-02201-4
On Sale: August 23, 2010
“South Dakota. The land of opportunity. But that was before the drought, that was before me and Isaac put a child in the well. That was before we did it a second time.”
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“An indelibly affecting teaching story: How unchecked selfish desires, regardless of their origins in historical cruelty and deprivation, lead inevitably to suffering. A suffering that can be alleviated only by the realization of a pure love for others greater than one’s desires for self. Rachel and Isaac DuPree and their tiny, vulnerable family stand as monuments to the forgotten millions of brutal, spirit deforming choices made and endured by so many brave and deeply wounded Americans.” – Alice Walker
“Ann Weisgarber has written an astonishing novel of the pioneering West—a novel as beautiful, profound, and unsentimental as those of Rolvaag and Cather. And yet her story feels brand new, its insights into race in America poignant and timely. THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF RACHEL DUPREE is the finest novel I’ve read this year. I can’t wait to read her next one.” – Lin Enger, author of Undiscovered Country
“A man, a woman and a marriage based on a bargain –Set these key elements in the Badlands in South Dakota in a year of drought, 1917, and you have a solid first novel. Add the complexities of people and place, and you have a personal history of a woman that you will not forget.” – Joyce Suellentrop, Watermark Books, Wichita, KS
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THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF RACHEL DUPREE is available from Viking/Penguin Group (USA) or from your preferred wholesaler. Be sure to contact the publisher for more information about this title.
If you are interested in scheduling an event, interview, or book club event or phoner with author Ann Weisgarber, please contact Sonya Cheuse, Publicity Manager, Viking / Penguin, 212.366.2078, sonya.cheuse@us.penguingroup.com. Ann Weisgarber lives in Texas, so she is available on only a limited basis.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
“The Personal History of Rachel DuPree is a wonderful addition to the literature of the Great Plains. Ann Weisgarber not only locates a bright, clear voice in that vast, silent region but does so in a much-neglected part of its population. This is a brave, lovely novel.” – Larry Watson, author of Montana 1948 and Orchard
Named Best Work of First Fiction by the Texas Institute of Letters and shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree is an American writer’s extraordinary debut novel. It recalls The Color Purple in its portrait of a woman who rises above the circumstances keeping her down, and it opens a window onto the little-known history of African American settlers in the West.
It is 1917 in the South Dakota Badlands, and summer has been hard. Fourteen years have passed since Rachel and Isaac DuPree left Chicago to redeem the promise of the Homestead Act by staking a claim in this unforgiving land. Isaac, a former Buffalo Soldier, is fiercely proud: black families are rare in the West, and black ranchers even rarer.
But it hasn’t rained in months—the cattle bellow with thirst, and supplies are dwindling. Pregnant and struggling to feed her family, Rachel is isolated by more than just geography. She is determined to give her surviving children the life they deserve, but she knows that her husband will never leave his ranch: land means a measure of equality with the white man, and Isaac DuPree is not about to give it up just because times are hard. Somehow Rachel must find the strength to stake another, altogether different claim—for herself, and for her children.
Moving and majestic, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree is an unforgettable novel about love and loyalty, homeland and belonging. Above all, it is the story of one woman’s courage in the face of the most punishing adversity.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANN WEISGARBER was born and raised in Kettering, Ohio. After graduating from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, she was a social worker in a psychiatric hospital before moving to Houston, Texas, with her husband. She earned a Master of Arts in sociology at the University of Houston and taught high school and then sociology at a junior college. She has lived in Boston, Massachusetts, and Des Moines, Iowa, and now divides her time between Sugar Land, Texas, and Galveston, Texas.
