The Island of Doves (28 page)

My gratitude goes to Claire Zion, Marly Rusoff, Julie Mosow, Michael Radulescu, Suzy Takacs, Brian Wilson, the marvelous team at Berkley, and the irreplaceable independent booksellers who have supported my novels. Thank you to Keith Widder at Michigan State University for correspondence on the history of Mackinac; to Ann McNees for her knowledge of heirloom jewelry and what sometimes happened to it in hard times; and to Stu Gruber, who not only understands but has shot every type of pistol and long gun made from King George III’s time to the present, including Magdelaine’s musket. Thank you to Jack and Kathy Mills for housing me on a research trip; to Brad and Susan Light for sharing their beautiful books about the island; to Amelia Musser and the Grand Hotel; to Ste. Anne Catholic Church on Mackinac Island; and to the Merchant’s House Museum in New York City.

I could not have written this novel without the support of my family, especially my parents, Steve and Mary O’Connor; friends and fellow writers Eleanor Brown, Susan Gregg Gilmore, Kelly Harms, Lori Nelson Spielman, Renee Rosen, Tasha Alexander, Ellen F. Brown, Erin Blakemore, Claire Zulkey, Molly Backes, Kate Harding, Wendy McClure, Amy Sue Nathan, and Nicholas Demmy; and Christine Clark, whose love and attention to my daughter has made it possible for me to continue writing. Finally, thank you to my patient, brilliant, steadfast husband, Bob, who taught me about the physics of flight.

The story and characters in
The Island of Doves
are fictional creations, but three of the characters were inspired in small ways by real historical figures.

Magdelaine LaFramboise (1780-1846) was one of the most successful fur traders, man or woman, in the Northwest Territory. Known as the “First Lady of Mackinac Island,” LaFramboise took over her husband’s business after he was murdered, and, after many successful years, sold it to John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company. This sale made her the wealthiest woman in Michigan at the time, a remarkable feat for a person of mixed Odawa and French-Canadian heritage. She is buried in the cemetery at Ste. Anne Catholic Church on Mackinac Island and her stately house now operates as the Harbor View Inn.

Benjamin Rathbun (1790-1873) was a prolific builder during the city of Buffalo’s early years. In 1835 alone, he built ninety-nine buildings and employed nearly one-third of the city’s workers. The following year he lost his fortune when he was convicted of forgery and sentenced to prison (after a brief stay in the jail he himself had constructed). Rathbun’s fall may have been a catalyst for the Panic of 1837, America’s worst financial crisis prior to the Great Depression.

Anna Brownell Jameson (1794-1860) was a British essayist and critic. Trapped in an unhappy marriage to a judge stationed in Toronto, Jameson used her wealth to arrange a long tour throughout the Great Lakes region, including to Mackinac Island, in 1837. Her travel journals detail the many intersecting cultures on the island and, in particular, record the stories and songs of its native people.

The following sources helped bring the settings and characters of this novel to life:
Magdelaine LaFramboise: The First Lady of Mackinac Island
by Keith Widder;
Reminiscences of Early Days on Mackinac Island
by Elizabeth Thérèse Baird;
The Living Great Lakes
by Jerry Dennis; “The Wildest and Tenderest Piece of Beauty That I Have Yet Seen on God’s Earth” by Larry Massie in
Michigan History
;
Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada
by Anna Brownell Jameson;
Wau-Bun
by Juliette Kinzie;
Summer on the Lakes, in 1843
by Margaret Fuller;
Mackinac Island
by Thomas and Pamela Piljac;
The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky: The Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft
by Robert Dale Parker;
The Literary Voyager
by Henry Schoolcraft;
West to Far Michigan
by Kenneth Lewis;
The Murder of Helen Jewett
by Patricia Cline Cowen; Chuck LaChiusa’s “History of Buffalo”; “The Canal Boat” by Nathaniel Hawthorne;
From Lumber Hookers to The Hooligan Fleet
by the Chicago Maritime Society;
What Hath God Wrought
by Daniel Walker Howe;
The Americans
by J. C. Furnas;
Our Own Snug Fireside
by Jane Nylander;
American Household Botany
by Judith Sumner;
An Introduction to Botany
by Priscilla Wakefield;
American Gardens of the Nineteenth Century
by Ann Leighton; and
The Douay Catechism of 1649.

READERS GUIDE

The Island of Doves

1. In
The Island of Doves,
the past is anything but dead and gone. What aspects of their respective pasts are both Magdelaine and Susannah wrestling with? What events haunt them? How do they ultimately confront these ghosts and make peace with them?

2. How does Susannah’s steamship journey and her sojourn in Detroit change her?

3. The island is a special place with a long history, but it is always in a state of change. How is the island changing as the story unfolds? What stays the same?

4. What kind of a mother is Magdelaine? In what ways is this role difficult for her? What kinds of things has she been able to teach her son that a more conventional mother could not?

5. What role does Susannah’s love of botany play in her past, present, and future?

6. What is the source of Edward’s anger and greed? Why can’t he just accept that Susannah does not want to be with him, and let her go?

7. How are the lives of women in this novel (Magdelaine, Susannah, Therese, Esmee, and Noelle) controlled or limited by men in positions of power? In what ways do they circumvent these limitations and claim autonomy or power of their own?

8. Why does Magdelaine teach the catechism to the young women, even though she isn’t particularly devout in a conventional sense?

9. Why does Jean-Henri capture the dove for his mother? Why does she keep it even though she cannot stand to look at it?

10. Why is Jean-Henri so upset when Magdelaine steps in to shoot the rabid dog?

11. Why doesn’t Magdelaine ever allow herself the comfort of lingering at Josette’s grave and talking to her sister’s spirit? What does that say about the kind of person Magdelaine is?

12. The obituary Edward submitted to the Buffalo newspaper after Susannah’s “death” was probably formal and brief. What kinds of facts might Susannah have liked to see it include that Edward didn’t know or value about her? If you were to write your own obituary now, today, what would you include? Do you think the people in your life who know you best see these aspects of your life in the same way you do?

13. What do you think about the Reveillon? Do you take the French outlook—revering life’s blessings through joyful celebration—or embrace the Presbyterian missionary’s view that people should show gratitude through sacrifice and self-denial? How are these competing philosophies still alive in our culture today?

14. Would you rather travel by steamship, dogsled, or canoe?

15. What does Alfred have to offer Susannah that Edward did not? What do you imagine might happen between them after the story ends?

16. What will life in the house be like now that Therese and Magdelaine are reunited at last?