Desperate Passage

The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West

By: Ethan Rarick

Narrated by: Christopher Prince

Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

In late October 1846, the last wagon train of that year's westward migration stopped overnight before resuming its arduous climb over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, unaware that a fearsome storm was gathering force. After months of grueling travel, the 81 men, women and children would be trapped for a brutal winter with little food and only primitive shelter. The conclusion is known: by spring of the next year, the Donner Party was synonymous with the most harrowing extremes of human survival. But until now, the full story of what happened--and what it tells us about human nature and about America's westward expansion--remained shrouded in myth.

Drawing on fresh archeological evidence, recent research on topics ranging from survival rates to snowfall totals, and heartbreaking letters and diaries made public by descendants a century-and-a-half after the tragedy, Ethan Rarick offers an intimate portrait of the Donner party and their unimaginable ordeal: a mother who must divide her family, a little girl who shines with courage, a devoted wife who refuses to abandon her husband, a man who risks his life merely to keep his word. Rarick resists both the gruesomely sensationalist accounts of the Donner party as well as later attempts to turn the survivors into archetypal pioneer heroes. "The Donner Party," Rarick writes, "is a story of hard decisions that were neither heroic nor villainous. Often, the emigrants displayed a more realistic and typically human mixture of generosity and selfishness, an alloy born of necessity."

A fast-paced, heart-wrenching, clear-eyed narrative history, Desperate Passage casts new light on one of America's most horrific encounters between the dream of a better life and the harsh realities such dreams so often must confront.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2009 Ethan Rarick (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

We take so much for granted

This book will remind you how good you have it. Very good read and enjoyable history of the old west, before everyone flew here.

awesome read

awesome read I really enjoyed every word. well told of a great story. thank you

Great story

What I really loved about this book was that it didn't try to make someone into a hero or heroine. We read about real people, making decisions for themselves, their families, their pets. One decision different can mean life and death; and it sometimes is just a toss of the coin. At one point a person within the Donner party is the savior and at other times, they make decisions for their personal survival. This story is reality and I really enjoyed it because it was not dressed up as something it wasn't. The people were real with all their frailties. Narration was excellent and held my interest. There were times I drove around the block a few times because I didn't want to shut the story down. Good read and good reader!

Would read again, loved it!

A great version of the Donner family story and well read. Will read again to make sure I remember all the interesting and important history.

Excellent book - amazing history

I love reading personal accounts of historical events. Prior to listening to this book I knew very little about the Donner party experience and not much about America's westward expansion in the 1800s. This story is truly amazing for two reasons. The personal courage and perseverance of those involved is beyond anything I could imagine. Also, this book is so well researched and documented that I have confidence the story occurred just as it is written. Some might consider this book just because of the well known accounts of cannibalism but there is so much more. It is a story of commitment, resolve, and heroism in the face of extreme trials.

Captivating

Where does Desperate Passage rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top 10.

What did you like best about this story?

Makes me appreciate life more & more every time I think of the story.

Great story with unexpected depth

I've always found the story of this chapter in US history highly interesting. But what I loved most about this book is learning how the trip came about, and the people who made up the fearless emigrants traveling west. There was so much I HADN'T heard before. Most accounts of the Donner story focus on the cannibalism aspect. But it's the other details that really gave me a deeper understanding of what it meant to be an emigrant: to leave one's home, one's town, one's entire way of life to make a perilous journey of this scale. To me, the horrors of having to eat human flesh in order to survive took a relative back seat to what was endured and suffered to get to that place.

My only real criticism has to do with the reader. He has a very good clear voice, and enunciates well. But he apparently doesn't know what a paragraph is and consistently fails to pause between them. Also, he reads with the same cadence and pitch for the entire book. It got tedious after a while, and then somewhat irritating. If I didn't find the story itself so compelling I might have bailed out before the end.

Wonderful Book

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

yes - puts you back in history

What did you like best about this story?

Just seeing how people used to live.

Which scene was your favorite?

liked them all.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes

Outstanding account!

This book is concise, accurate, riveting and flows nicely. The author has done magnificent research and portrays this trajedy in accurate context. He also dispells the earlier myths and exaggerations of the publics understanding of the events. This work explains many of the details of the significant mistakes and decisions that lead the Donner Party to their entrapment in the Sierras. But from there the author clearly lays out the trials and tribulations of their four and a half month horror and the reader learns they simply did what they had to do to survive. This book made me feel a part of the experience. What a tribute to the pioneering spirit that helped settle our West. I cannot pray over my meals or at my bedside without pausing to reflect my own blessings of food, warmth, and shelter. The narrarator does a fine job. Some reviews are simply too critical and expect perfection. The narration flows nicely.

How can a story about cannabilism be so inspiring?

What did you love best about Desperate Passage?

The facts are undeniable and horrifying- settlers resorting to cannablism. What I found most shocking though was how inspiring a story it was. I have never been so motivated as these people were to pick up and leave my life and travel into the complete unknown.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Desperate Passage?

When the Donner party is rescued was not how I imagened.

What does Christopher Prince bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

After his introduction about cannablism, which was hard to listen to- he calms it down and is more subtle and matter of fact.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Just what I said earlier. It is hard to wrap your brain around cannabilism but after you read -- you get it. And somehow, it's still scary but you understand.