From Sea to Shining Sea

From Sea to Shining Sea by James Alexander Thom

As we prepare to begin our own Voyage of Discovery to the Western Ocean in 4 1/2 weeks finishing this read more than wets my appetite to see and experience what is just over the next hill, and around the bend in that forest road.  This is book two in the unintended series on the John and Ann Clark family of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Long Knife, James Thom's first period novel (reviewed earlier here) told the tale of George Rogers Clark, the military mind and pioneer spirit which won for America all of the 'Old Northwest' (Ohio-Illinois-Indiana and above) during the American Revolution.  From Sea to Shining Sea surrounds the tale of George with all of his nine brothers and sisters from the birth of brother Billy (William) to the Christmas 1805 family reunion in Louisville, Ky at William's return from his amazing trek to the Pacific with Meriwether Lewis.

For sheer adventure these novels work quite well, but as history they complete their task.  No wonder both became national best sellers.

Researched exhaustively by the author, Thom even spent a day up to his waste in freezing Wabash River water to understand the sacrifice of George's small army in it's attack upon the British fort at Vincennes.  He traveled the entire Lewis and Clark Trail to be able to better describe that famous east to west journey. And he read every document available on the Rogers and Clark families for the most accurate take on each family member.

Told very much from the perspective of their mother, Ann Rogers Clark, it is the personal contact through this writing that makes my desire so great to see and feel what remains at each place they lived, fought, parleyed and explored.

As Mr. Thom has mother Clark say from Heaven in the book's epilogue, "And here I end my family's story. I pray ye think on it, for there's no family ever did more to shape this land. And when you see a Clarksville, or Clarksburgh, or a Clark County or a Clark River or park or national forest anywhere across this land, as y'will, all across, from sea to shining sea, you'll know what Clarks they're speakin' of: my sons. Mine and John's, I should say."

For me, this was a five star read *****
-Ken