THE WOMAN SHE LEFT BEHIND
WHAT IS THE NOVEL ABOUT?
Rachel Barnum, a 40-year-old Michigan farm widow, receives a disturbing telegram in spring, 1862. Her son Dwight, a soldier in the 2nd Michigan cavalry, has a fever and is failing. The news provokes Rachel to find Dwight, lying in an Army field hospital near New Madrid, Missouri, and nurse him to health or bring his body home.
The stakes for Rachel immediately increase when she resolves to travel alone, leaving three other children—twin daughters aged 10 and a 16-year-old son—with her live-in hired man. Solo travel into a war zone is dangerous for anyone, but nineteenth-century cultural stereotypes make mobility for an attractive woman especially dangerous. Rachel’s determination to turn down the hired man’s offer, a man with whom she shares a burgeoning love interest, to go in her place is either a fool’s errand or a true hero’s journey.
WHAT IS RACHEL'S CONFLICT?
Rachel needs to know where Dwight is, why he suffers, and if she can get to him in time to save him. When a child, Dwight was sickly and frail, and Rachel overindulged him at the expense of Watson, her second son. Withdrawn and aloof, Watson is a troubled boy. He misses his deceased father, avoids his mother, and doesn’t like John Welch, the hired farm hand. The novel pivots on a classic dilemma: Because Rachel cannot be in two places at once, she agonizes over what she doesn’t know, what is happening in both places.
WHAT CHALLENGES MUST RACHEL OVERCOME?
Rachel must deal with a legion of physical challenges: spring storms, a tornado, a flooded Mississippi, unreliable news accounts, and a dangerous Cairo, Illinois—a raw Western frontier town ruled by U.S. military provost marshals. These barriers seem insurmountable and contribute to moments of desperation, dismay, and self-doubt for Rachel. Meanwhile, armies are gathering for the imminent Battle of Shiloh, the horrendous casualties of which will soon shock the nation. Because the Rebels have garrisoned Island No. 10, just upriver from New Madrid, with thousands of soldiers and entrenched batteries of artillery, river passage is not possible. Nor is travel by land, due to record flooding of the Mississippi in the spring of 1862.
And there are psychological challenges. Rachel must come to terms with survivor's guilt after witnessing the funeral of her four-year-old twin sister. She must find closure after losing her mother when Rachel was ten. Both are buried in Eastern cemeteries she will never visit. For this reason, when her husband of seventeen years passed unexpectedly on the eve of the Rebellion, Rachel carved a family cemetery from her farm and buried him within view of her kitchen window.
Rachel must learn to forgive herself for favoring Dwight and neglecting Watson. She must reconcile with Watson, relinquish the need to control outcomes, and temper her stubborn nature to accept help from others. Most importantly, she needs to open her heart to love again. John Welch is the recipient of Rachel’s love.
POINT OF VIEW AND PLOT DEVELOPMENT
The story is told in third-person POV as we experience main character Rachel’s traumas and joys as a young girl, a wilderness traveler from New York City to Michigan, a young mother, a wife, and finally a widow.
Flashbacks and multiple timelines pace plot development of other key characters: hired man John Welch and Rachel’s sons, Dwight and Watson. We learn about Rachel’s layered family history, share Dwight’s urge to enlist, see Watson’s simmering anger, and come to understand why bachelor John Welch wandered for 20 years before turning up at Rachel’s farm. The hired man’s timeline shows why he earns not only Rachel’s trust but also her love.
Rachel learns that getting what she wants means more than being determined and resourceful and self-reliant. By the novel’s end, Rachel accepts the bittersweet recompense that only terrible loss can offer and that love is possible only when trust is earned.