The Outlander

"It was night, and the dogs came through the trees, unleashed and howling." Mary Boulton, 19, is newly widowed, a result of having murdered her husband. The men with the dogs are her twin brothers-in-law, gunslingers bent on avenging their dead sibling. It is 1903, and the only place for Mary to run is west, into the wilderness. She is pursued not only by the vengeful twins but also by visions. Mary was raised in a genteel household but married a brute; now, having divested herself of her husband, she is not altogether sane. From an early benefactress she steals a horse, and together they navigate a gothic, ghostly mountain pass, unlikely to improve Mary's mental state. Desperate, freezing, and alone, Mary is now an outlander, as are most of the characters she encounters. The bird lady, the Ridgerunner, Bonny, the dwarf, and the cat-skinner are all earthbound beings inhabiting unsettled lives. The juxtaposition of Adamson's ethereal landscape and unusual characters make this novel difficult to put down. One is never completely sure if the landscape described is wholly real or a figment borne of Mary's fragile mind. Either way, The Outlander is a poet's journey through astonishing terrain.