The Lost Wife

A Novel

By: Susanna Moore

Narrated by: Sophie Amoss

A WALL STREET JOURNAL TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • This immersive, brilliantly subversive historical novel, inspired by a true story, is “set in 1855, follows 25-year-old Sarah Browne as she…heads west to the Minnesota Territory…When the Sioux Uprising of 1862 erupts…Sarah and her children are captured, but protected by the Sioux. Sarah sympathizes with her captors, and slips into the gap between her two worlds” (TIME).

“The story has it all: the bloody hell of war…revenge, corruption, injustice. Even some romance…A vivid tale of frontier adventure and peril.”—Minneapolis Star-Tribune

One of our most compelling and sensual writers brings to life a devastating Native American revolt and the woman caught in the middle of the conflict in this novel about a seminal and shameful moment in America’s conquest of the West.

In the summer of 1855, Sarah Brinton abandons her husband and child to make the long and difficult journey from Rhode Island to Minnesota Territory, where she plans to reunite with a childhood friend. When she arrives at a small frontier post on the edge of the prairie without family or friends and with no prospect of work or money, she quickly remarries and has two children. Anticipating unease and hardship at the Indian Agency, where her husband Dr. John Brinton is the new resident physician, Sarah instead finds acceptance and kinship among the Sioux women at a nearby reservation.

The Sioux tribes, however, are wary of the white settlers and resent the rampant theft of their land. Promised payments by the federal government are never made, and starvation and disease soon begin to decimate their community. Tragically and inevitably, this leads to the Sioux Uprising of 1862. During the conflict, Sarah and her children are abducted by the Sioux, who protect her, but because she sympathizes with her captors, Sarah becomes an outcast to the white settlers. In the end, she is lost to both worlds.

Intimate and raw, The Lost Wife is a searing tale of the conquest of the American West.

©2023 Susanna Moore (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK from Vogue and TIME Magazine

A BEST BOOK OF SPRING 2023 from Esquire

“A masterwork of historical fiction. . . . Beautiful and stark as an American prairie, The Lost Wife evokes a profound sense of time, place, and moral clarity.” —Esquire, “The Best Books of Spring 2023”

“In her searing new novel, The Lost Wife. . . . [Susanna Moore] writes of the past with quiet insight through the eyes of women who . . . frequently move from a form of innocence to some collision with history. . . . As in all Moore’s writing, the details are tartly precise. So are her striking observations, offered without sentimentality or fanfare. . . . [a] beautifully crafted novel. . . . Moore is a strong and inventive writer.” —The New York Review of Books

“The Lost Wife is a terse novel, finely written, that underscores the plight of both white women and Indians subjected to the tyranny of the white man’s world.” —The Denver Post

Fascinating story

Based on the captivity narrative of Sarah Wakefield, included in Penguin Classis edition, Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives. Interesting review of the novel & the original narrative is in the New York Review of Books, May 25, 2023 issue, by Brenda Wineapple.

Based on real characters

Good story based on historical events. The author wrote in a very concise but descriptive style which I liked. But even for a short book, it began to drag. Excellent narration.

Too short

I enjoyed this book as I am a big fan of historical fiction. It contained many interesting facts about the Sioux outbreak that took place in Minnesota in 1862. Also, there was much information about how American Indians lived. My only complaint is that it ended abruptly and much too soon. In my opinion, there was more story to be told.

Loved it!

I didn’t want it to end. Such a great story and touch of history that we seem to have forgotten about these days.

very enjoyable

Neither preachy or sanctimonious , a tale well told. Wish it had been longer, as this review is not.

Who is the Savage

A rivetting account of the clashes between the white farmer/entrepreneur/settlers of the American plains and the native tribes, particularly the Sioux, in the 1860’s. Drawn from and representing diaries from the time.
Reader is consistently breathy: mild annoyance.

Self-discovery, history, and and indigenous people

There is a lot to unpack in this book. There is the story of self-discovery for the protagonist. There is the history of early settlement of Minnesota. There is the sad history of hatred and racism toward the indigenous people. All tied together by the thread of what is truth. One piece of advice to the producer: Please get the name of the major city (also a character) of the book correct. It was so irritating to hear Shakopee mispronounced the entire book. One phone call to the city hall or to a native of Minnesota or a local weather person would have told you how to correctly say “shock-oh-pee”.

Short Listen

Story was good but I guess I didn’t realize it was a short novel. Wish it had been longer with more character development.

Loved it

Deeply moving account of life on the prairie in 1862. The descriptions of the tensions between the native Americans and government forces are harrowing. Beautiful and disturbing imagery of life as a pioneer. Narration was brilliant.

vivid description

The narration was well done and the story was compelling. A different view of the Indian wars.