Prairie Fires

Author: Caroline Fraser
Genre: Biography
Publisher: Picador, 2018
Pages: 656
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls - the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser - the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series - masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder's biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding the charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books.

The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But Wilder's real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children's books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of homesteading - and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters.

Spanning nearly a century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder's dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this day.

Review: This book is divided into three parts. The first part puts Laura's early life into historical context. It was excellent. The second part is a lot of information about Laura's daughter Rose, who in today's terms, was a hot mess. It was cumbersome, and didn't feel like the author ever really found her writing groove. The third part included more Rose than I found necessary, but she also returned to Laura and her legacy.

Had the second part been stricken from the book entirely, the reader would be no less informed and probably more satisfied overall.

As a fan of the Little House books and Laura in general, having been to several home sites, this was a must-read.