The Personal History of Rachel DuPREE by Ann Weisgarber

I still see her, our Liz, sitting on a plank, dangling over that well. She held on to the rope that hung from the pulley, her bare feet pressed together so tight that the points on her ankle bones were nearly white. She was six. She had on her brother's cast-off pants, and earlier, when I'd given them to her, she'd asked if wearing pants made her a boy. I'd told her we'd wait and see see, and that had made her giggle. 

Title: The Personal History of Rachel DuPREE
Author: Ann Weisgarber
ISBN: 9780143119487
Publisher: Penguin Books/2011
Pages: 321

1917. Badlands in South Dakota. It has been struck by a severe drought. Rachel DuPREE and husband Isaac are trying hard to survive. Rachel is pregnant with her eighth child. She has five surviving children and does not wish to bury the one she is carrying. Isaac is resolute. He will not give up the land but Rachel has misgivings now. When Isaac lowers Liz, their six year old daughter, into the well to get water, Rachel cannot bear to look into Liz's accusing eyes. She starts reminiscing her life and starts questioning. 

Looking back, we learn that, Isaac and Rachel acquired 360 acres of land from the Homestead Act, as a black man - or even a woman - was entitled to stake a claim. Rachel married Isaac because she was in love with him but Isaac married her for acquiring land.  

Twelve years later, Rachel is not so sure about her choices in life. She wants better for her children, not this struggle. They do not have small pleasures of life. She knows she has to take a decision for the sake of her children.

Told in the voice of Rachel, the prose is not flowery but spare and beautiful. We are with Rachel all the way. We learn about "agency Indians" and the black settlers and it makes us think, who land is it in the first place. 

I will quote Rachel here: "I admired the feel of a book. I opened the book and held it to each girl's nose. I alwasy believed that smelling the pages of a book took a person into the story." 

That is the way I felt about this novel.