DEATH VALLEY IN '49

Despite its title, this book is the autobiography of a hunter and guide from the time he left New York for Ohio at age 9 until he started farming in California at age 30. It’s an engaging story, and the author offers an intimate glimpse at the travails and tragedies of the pioneers as they moved west in the first half of the nineteenth century. Andre Stojka offers an engaging reading, with a kind of mild, raspy, rural sound that seems entirely appropriate for a man like William Manly. But Stojka often speeds up the reading of some passages and runs sentences together, almost as if he were trying to finish a paragraph in one breath. As the author often moves from one thought to another without transition, this can make for momentarily disorienting listening. R.C.G © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2012]