The Homesman: A Novel

Written by Glendon Swarthout

Narrated by Candace Thaxton

Now a major film directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones and co-starring Meryl Streep, Hilary Swank, and John Lithgow, this classic Western novel captures the devastating realities of early frontier life through the eyes of one extraordinary woman.

Now a major motion picture directed by Tommy Lee Jones, The Homesman is a devastating story of early pioneers in 1850s American West. It celebrates the ones we hear nothing of: the brave women whose hearts and minds were broken by a life of bitter hardship. A “homesman” must be found to escort a handful of them back East to a sanitarium. When none of the county’s men steps up, the job falls to Mary Bee Cuddy—ex-teacher, spinster, indomitable and resourceful. Brave as she is, Mary Bee knows she cannot succeed alone. The only companion she can find is the low-life claim jumper George Briggs. Thus begins a trek east, against the tide of colonization, against hardship, Indian attacks, ice storms, and loneliness—a timeless classic told in a series of tough, fast-paced adventures.

In an unprecedented sweep, Glendon Swarthout’s novel won both the Western Writers of America’s Spur Award and the Western Heritage Wrangler Award. A new afterword by the author’s son Miles Swarthout tells of his parents Glendon and Kathryn’s discovery of and research into the lives of the oft-forgotten frontier women who make The Homesman as moving and believable as it is unforgettable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Feb 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781442370883

Glendon Swarthout

Glendon Swarthout wrote sixteen novels, many of which were bestsellers and were made into films, among them Seventh Cavalry, They Came to Cordura, Where the Boys Are, Bless the Beasts & Children, and A Christmas to Remember. He was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and won a number of other awards, including the Western Writers Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Reviews for The Homesman

[Robert Mann · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A believable story, as the first settlers made their way west panning the dream, a new and free life homesteading, walking behind the plow most not realizing their dreams being ten fold the labor. Seeking simplicity staking the boundaries most bringing their parcels to the registrar declaring claims. Usually miles apart, awaiting visits from all the doctor's bag could hold praying it included what was necessary for the sustanance of their or a loved ones life. Or a knock on the door from the traveling preacher his tithe a meal and a place to lay his head. The law was one's closest neighbors. A viriaty of personalities, head strong, hearty enduring winter's on the prairie, spring always just around the corner, bringing blue skies, warmth, rain, to toil long hours before winters arrival in the hope of gaining a better foot hold in this new life, a warmer shelter, perhaps a better horse or ox to plow their fields, a child born to grow and love some day to help ease the pressure of prairie life. A few women who's mind's would break in all maner of hardship needing a volunteer bringing them back to family, civilization to be cared for. A story of the trip, a claim jumper a lady from the prairie precariously volunteered and matched to bring the women back to civilization... The voice and cadence of this books reader makes the partnership between the two. Her voice takes place of reading the book giving greater imagination then if read for one's self. All to say I thoroughly enjoyed the writer and readers compatibility, I hope you do too.

[bridgey_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Recently I have started reading a few Western Novels, and really enjoyed the landscape descriptions and the fast and hard narratives. I love a book that has a no nonsense approach with no wasted pages on romance and suchlike. A few months ago I discovered Vardis Fisher and was blown away with his book Mountain Man, so when The Homesman was recommended on the back of that novel I knew I had to snatch it up and start reading. The author was new to me, but when I googled him I realised that I had seen a few of the film adaptations of his books, I especially enjoyed The Shootist with John Wayne. Strangely though, very few of his books seem to be now in print and the only way to purchase is to spend a small fortune on Ebay. Luckily this book seems have benefitted from being made into a movie in 2014 and the novel republished as a tie in. Based on a mixture of real life events (as explained by the author's son in the afterword) we follow the strange tales of four women who have moved to the territories with their husbands. Each has had an upset in their lives which has caused them to lose their minds and must be transported back East to the city where they can be cared for either by family or a lunatic asylum. The only problem with this is that someone must take them across the perilous desert, this is usually chosen by the husbands drawing lots and the 'loser' being the 'homesman' (the person designated to lead the trip). However, the man chosen refuses to accept responsibility and a single woman of means, named Cuddy volunteers to undertake the journey alone. On the way to collect the women she encounters a claim jumper who has been left astride his horse with a noose around his neck so that he may hang himself. Securing a promise of his help if she saves his life the journey begins.There is so much to like about this book, the hardships endured by the settlers are really brought home, the life we think of when new settlers arrived is usually one of joy and plenty but the reality seems to have been a life of toil, illness and a real threat of starvation and survival of the fittest. Swartout really loves the country he describes and the research must have been a labour of love. As others have pointed out, this is almost an 'African Queen' set in the desert, but I much prefer the rough character of Briggs to that of Allnut, he seems so much more real. The term page turner is used far too much, but this really was worthy of that title, and the twists when they came were very unexpected and left me wondering where the tale would next take me.Easily recommendable and when you consider this book was written in 1988 (thirty years ago and 130 years after the plot setting) it still has an authentic feel. A brilliant introduction to both the author and the genre. My only regret? There wasn't a sequel.

[ken5me5old5mate · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You know how it is when you hear a name and think to yourself, “yeah I must read that”. But you never do. And you go on hearing that name off and on for the following years and you keep thinking that sooner or later you will read that book. But you never do.

And then one day you think, "that’s it, I am going to read that book”. But instead you read a different book by the same person. That’s how I came to be in front of The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout. It should have been The Shootist. But it wasn’t.

And so I started to read The Homesman and within mere minutes I was away, taken by the words of the late Glendon Swarthout.

Very soon I understood why, all those years ago, someone said to me, “Glendon Swarthout”. I’d rather forget the person who said that to me but unfortunately they are stuck inside me forever saying those two words. And I hate to admit to myself that they were right all along.

These people came to life and walked and talked right in front of me, so vivid I could smell them and shiver in the cold of their landscape. Their story became an unfolding, or rather a concentrating, drama for my pleasure. And it was. I loved every minute of it.

[lyndainoregon · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Charged with transporting four women, minds broken by the hardships of the frontier, Mary Bee Cuddy enlists the reluctant help of a dispossessed claim jumper to help her.Well, not enlists exactly. More like blackmails, since George Briggs escaped a slow hanging only due to Mary Bee's efforts. The unlikely partners then commence a tedious journey east toward Iowa, fighting each other, their occasionally raging passengers, the weather, and the land itself.Swarthout keeps it honest. This is an 'African Queen' set in 1850s Nebraska, but George Briggs is no Charlie Allnutt -- he may drag their conveyance across the miles by main force and stubbornness, but will not reveal a heart of gold at the end, nor will he set up for happy-ever-after with Mary Bee.This is a fine and honest book, honored by the Western Writers of America in 1988 as Best Western Historical Novel. Thirty years later, it still wears the laurel well.

[paradiseporch · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sleeper hit of my reading year. Who would have expected my #1 book to be a western?Winner of the Spur Award (long novel) from the Western Writers of America and the Western Heritage Association’s Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, making it indisputably the best western novel of 1988. After 4 women, including her good friend Theoline Belknap, go insane in the Oklahoma Territory in the 1850s, Mary Bee Cuddy volunteers to take them back to family and/or asylums in Iowa. Realizing she can’t do it alone, she recruits claim jumper George Briggs whom she rescues from a lynching.They face Indians, prejudice from outgoing wagon trains, and a vicious ice storm. Briggs knows how to handle the mules & the wagon repairs better than she does. Eventually as they near Iowa, Cuddy proposes to Briggs who refuses her, then comes to him in the night, naked. By the morning, she has hanged herself. Briggs continues on because there is $300 in it for him but once he reaches his destination, he finds that the bank on which the $50 notes are drawn is bankrupt.

[melissalenhardt · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

More like 3.5 stars. Swarthout tells the story of the pioneers who failed, of the women driven crazy by a hard, unrelenting life. Recommended for readers who don't like their westerns riddled with hoary cliches and a hollywoodized version of the old west.

[delta61 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed the book until I reached the last third. At that point, the author lost touch with his main character and didn't seem to know which way to turn.

[hovercraftofeels · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While there are still elements of the typical Manifest Destiny western in this novel, I appreciate Swarthout's attempt to bring to life the stories that are often left to rot in old newspapers and archives. What first appealed to me was the film, as so many others have noted. I wanted to read the novel to see how, if at all, it differed. The character Briggs is your average lone wolf, expert marksman with a shadowy past. There really isn't much going on there. He even has the expected "soft" side. Mary Bee Cuddy is also typical in some ways: she's homely yet capable, pious and pure, and independent. In a way, I both love and hate the ending. On one hand, it reinforces the idea that even "strong" women need men, yet it does fit well with her character and personality. Overall, this novel is engaging and I definitely love what the author did with the retelling of each "crazy" woman's story. It's a great example of what a western can be.

[veronica.sparrow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a refreshing and original take on the old west genre which examines a little known reality of the settlement of the west. Namely the experience of the women who either came with their families or on their own. Sometimes the women set to their tasks and lot in life successfully but other times the sheer isolation, poverty, and terrible losses they faced could completely overwhelm these brave women. What happened to these broken women is the basis of this book. The answer is a wagon train run by a homesman to bring these women back to civilization and their families. The story is heart breaking and sad. Anyone who is interested in the settlement of the west and the role that women played should definitely read this book.

[huntersun9 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I saw the movie first and loved it so I bought the book. Turns out, the movie is a quite faithful adaptation. It is a wonderful, if deeply sad, story of the not-always-glorious West.

[linda.marsheells · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Both men and women pioneered the west...guts and very little glory for the majority of them. So what happened when the unbearable loneliness, extreme weather conditions and lack of common essentials became too much to handle? Men took off for the mountains or became drunkards but what of the women? Their mental instability was too much to be handled locally. That's where the homesman comes into play...a male chosen to carry the females east to a location where they could be cared for till they were sent back to their orignal family homes. In THIS book a woman offered herself to do the job no one wanted, Mary Bee Cuddy. Along the way she saves the life of aclaim jumper and in exchange he accompanies the wagon load back East. Wow. In the middle, the story takes a turn and threw me for a loop- no pun intended. Do they make it? Well worth the read to find out!

[maydacat_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Even though travel to the west in the 1800s was difficult and could be deadly, there were still occasions when a return trip to the east was a necessity. Such was the case when an abnormally harsh winter coupled with primitive living and healthcare robbed four women of their minds. The care they need is not available on the prairie, and so the decision is made to take them back east to relatives. When no man volunteers to be a “homesman,” one woman, Mary Bee Cuddy, steps up and volunteers. Soon, though, she realizes that she cannot do this task alone. Enlisting the help of a claim-jumper, they come together as a band of misfits and begin their journey. Mary Bee has but one goal in mind, to get these broken women to a place of safety, but the man she coerced into helping is not of the same mindset. Braving the elements, the trip east back is fraught with dangers, both from the environment and from the women they are transporting. This novel is clearly a good story, from start to finish, even though the end is perhaps not the ending most readers hoped for.

[cathyskye · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Normally I'm not what's known as a "cover junkie," but the cover of The Homesman showing a lone sod house in endless waves of prairie grass under an eternity of sky grabbed me. When I read the synopsis, I knew I had a purchase to make. Decades ago I remember coming across a comment in a history book which stated that women in those "soddies" out on the Great Plains had been known to go insane just from loneliness and the ceaseless keening of the wind. That was all that was said, but those words stuck in my mind like a burr. Now here was a novel in which the story of these lost voices could be heard.Author Glendon Swarthout was always more interested in the losers in the Old West. What happened to them? What were their stories? In doing research, he didn't find much about what was done about people who were mentally ill, and what he did find was about the men-- who were likely to die of exposure or disease, to become alcoholics, or even to be shot down like rabid dogs in some out-of-the-way corner. But what happened to the women? Even back in the 1850s you couldn't just shoot a woman. The Homesman is Swarthout's solution, and it is spare, poetic, and brutally honest. Superficially it is the simple tale of a man and a woman taking four helpless women cross country in a wagon to get them the sort care that they need. But the troubles Mary Bee and Briggs encounter on the trail, the people they meet, and just their close proximity to each other, begin to change them in subtle ways. This book is heartbreaking, it is brutal, and it is shocking. It tells a tale that many readers aren't particularly going to want to read, and perhaps that's the exact reason why they should read it. This is a story about the losers, those who were completely lost to history. The reasons why these beleaguered people failed were never going to be pretty or cheerful, but they should be remembered.As I read, I began to feel cheated that the four women being taken back to Iowa didn't have any real dialogue or interaction with the others. Then I just had to shake my head at my own foolishness. The four women in The Homesman had been bludgeoned past caring by work with no end, by giving birth to one baby after another, by the brutal vagaries of the weather, and often by cruelty from their own husbands. These women had completely given up; they had been reduced to things that needed to be moved from Point A to Point B.No, it's Mary Bee and Briggs who carry the load of thinking and conversation and action, and even their stories don't go as most readers would like. But as shocking as their tales may be, Swarthout plants clues all along the trail for us to notice. I was completely under this book's spell, and even though I didn't like how everything turned out, I still loved it. Now I'm looking forward to how Hollywood treats a very un-Hollywood novel. It will be interesting.

[samsattler · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Glendon Swarthout is best known for his western classic “The Shootist,” a novel that eventually became actor John Wayne’s last film. But now that Swarthout’s equally powerful western, “The Homesman,” is being filmed (and directed by Tommy Lee Jones), this 1988 novel is being given new life – thankfully so, because I missed it the first time around.“The Homesman” explores an aspect of American western migratory history that is seldom considered: what happened to those 1850s settlers who suffered mental breakdowns under the extreme conditions common to their new environment and lifestyle. This was especially the case for those women, already isolated from everything and everyone they left behind, who lost one or more children to disease or accident. Who would care for them if they could not care for themselves?The research Swarthout conducted in Nebraska gave him the answers he sought. Mentally ill men are likely to have died of exposure, disease, or death at the hands of fellow settlers who felt threatened by their presence. Women suffering mental illness, on the other hand, were not treated so harshly. It was more likely that husbands made arrangements to have their wives transported back east to family or institutions that could care for them for the rest of their lives. The tragedy of four of these women having to be removed from their families and carried back across the Missouri River for care serves as the premise of “The Homesman” (“homesman” being the term for the man chosen to escort the women eastward). In the case of these particular women, however, when no man, including their own husbands, is willing to make that dangerous trek, the job falls to a woman volunteer, one Mary Bee Cuddy. The determined Mary Bee is perhaps the only woman who would even have had a small chance to get the four women home safely on her own. But, despite the fact that the four husbands are perfectly content to see their wives set out without a male escort, Mary Bee knows that she needs help if she and the women are to survive the trip – and she finds that help in the person of a claim jumper she coerces into accompanying her.When first published in 1988, “The Homesman” won both major awards annually given to the best western novels of the year: the Western Heritage Wrangler Award and the Spur Award granted by the Western Writers of America. It is easy to see why.