Excerpt from The Lost Wife by Susanna Moore, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I was told by one of the deckhands, a Negro named Joseph who takes the soundings with lengths of twine, that I am fortunate it was such a mild winter. The ice on the river broke up sooner than is customary. The boats, he said, are drawn off when the water falls low in late summer. I asked him what he did when the boats were not running and he said he works at the sawmill in St. Anthony when they will have him. There are falls there, twenty feet high, and famous around the world. He was surprised I had not heard of them. He said I would do myself a favor by visiting them. He also said he has an Indian wife. When he saw me eating the last of my pears, he told me that dinner was included in the fare. I pretended that I knew that, but preferred to eat alone. In truth, I was too embarrassed by my appearance, my shabby clothes and dirty hair and the way that I smelled to eat with other travelers, even if it was included in my passage.

Near the settlement of Red Wing, three thousand otter pelts were loaded onto the boat by trappers who themselves looked like otters, decked in skins and fur hats, despite the heat. Some men came on board to discuss the state of the river, each with a different view. Some warn about snags, or sandbars, or the danger of the water dropping suddenly. Others find the current a bit strong given the time of year. Stokers disembarking to load wood chased away a grizzly eating the carcass of what might have been a cow, and what some said was a man. One night, strong winds caused us to anchor in the middle of the river, the boat shuddering in the stream until the wind shifted and fell away.

I haven't taken in anything new in so long, I don't know where to fix my attention, or even how to see. I have never been more than eight miles from the center of Providence. I am adrift on a great river and adrift in my mind. I feel many things at once. Excited and exhausted, calm and distressed. I don't know what to do with so much feeling. I saw that my life would now be one of improvisation, forgetting for a moment that my life has always been one of improvisation. I hadn't known how easily a new life can be made. It seems everyone around me is doing the same, gambling that he has chosen the right new life. There are real gamblers on the riverboat, men in striped trousers and doeskin gloves, but you can tell that they, at least, know what they are doing.

* * *

We reached Shakopee in Minnesota Territory this afternoon. On the far bank, I could see Indian men standing at the edge of the bluff and women washing clothes in the river.

The bandage on my wrist was black with soot, and I unwound it and threw it in the river. The burn is almost healed, but there will be a scar to join my other scars. You must remember this, I said to myself, cleaning the burn with my spit. It is the summer of 1854, and you are free. You are twenty-five years old, and you are a thousand miles from home. What once was home.

Shakopee has a dusty main street with stores and houses on each side, most of them made of unseasoned wood. There are a few brick houses with tin roofs, an Episcopal church with a listing spire, and what appears to be a windowless schoolhouse. There is the smell of cut wood and manure, and the sound of boat horns and the sawing of lumber and the cries of animals as they are prodded from the steamers.

As it was late, I stopped at the first hotel I saw, The Hooper House, where I asked for a room. The clerk sat in a rocking chair with a woman on his lap. He pointed to the stairs, singing, "A bed for a grunt, a bed for a grunt."

I climbed to the second floor, where I found a large open room, crowded with men. The room was full of smoke. There were many beds, most of them occupied. I noticed a rag doll on one of the beds and a man said, "That's my little sweetheart." There was an empty bed in one corner, separated from the others by a thin cotton sheet nailed to the low ceiling, and I slid my suitcase under the bed. There was a croker sack stuffed with husks for a pillow, and a stained blanket. I was so worn by my journey that I didn't care if the men watched me through the sheet, describing me with great guffaws to those whose view was impeded, disappointed that I did not remove my clothes. They, too, I noticed, slept in their clothes, but I removed my shoes.

* * *

The room was empty when I awoke this morning. A reeking kerosene lantern sat on a table near the door, which did little to dispel the stench from a number of chamber pots overflowing with piss and shit. There is a window high on a water-stained wall, but it is nailed shut.

Excerpted from The Lost Wife by Susanna Moore. Copyright © 2023 by Susanna Moore. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.