A Promising Life: Coming of Age with America, A Novel

A Promising Life is about Baptiste, Sacagawea’s son. William Clark, who had been helped by Sacagawea years ago, promised that he had a plan to take care of Baptiste; however, by the time Baptiste was old enough to go stay with Clark, he found that Clark already had a son. He was sent to a boarding school for “mixed bloods.” In the years that followed, Baptiste made numerous friends and learned many important lessons. In the end, he decided to explore the west.

I didn’t like this book very much, partly because the author didn’t describe Baptiste as being a supremely admirable character. He had a child outside of wedlock, and when the child died, he felt relieved because he had been freed of the responsibility and expense of caring for a baby. Another problem I had was that the plot was not very fast-moving. Although Baptiste had an extraordinary life, I didn’t find that any of it made for an exciting read. For example, at no point in the book did I feel suspense. The writing, however, was superb. I enjoyed the variety of adjectives and adverbs, sentence patterns, and more. Although this topic doesn’t interest me much, I thought the author did a wonderful job making all the details of the story tie into the time period. If you seriously love history, you would most likely enjoy this book.