This is one of my favourite books. I cry every time i read it and i try to read it every couple of years. ( )

young American woman marries adventurer, is lost in Sahara, many adventures and ends life as a lady

Dorothy Gilman is probably best known for her Mrs. Pollifax series, but she also has written a number of stand alone books. This is one of them.

The story of Caressa Horvath is told be her, starting in the early 1900s when Caressa is 16. She already knows how to do magic tricks, pick pockets and other tricks as taught her by her Grams, but her Mum has plans for Caressa to attend a proper girls’ school and learn to become a lady. Carny life isn’t a good enough life for Caressa, in her mother’s eyes.

Caressa does go to a proper school in Boston, and learns the things a lady needs to know. Manners, graces and just enough education to compliment a husband. She also meets Jacob Bowman, an anthropologist, linguist, student of the world and older than her. It isn’t romance, but she winds up marrying him. For Caressa it was becoming a lady, to please her Mum, and the upcoming travel abroad. The first destination is North Africa.

Caressa is interested in her surrounding and has no problem wanting to explore and learn. The real problem is women are considered more second class and not allowed to do much on their own. Luckily Caressa is given a guide, who when he learns of her desire to learn, helps create a disguise for her, as a boy, and instructs her on how to behave and not draw attention to herself. These things become life saving when she finds herself the only survivor of their caravan, and must make her way across the desert and hopefully back to America.

The tale contains drama, adventure, danger and some humour. It is a few years before Caressa is able to get back home. Along the way she meets some very interesting people who help her and some who are out to harm her.

It took me a bit to get through it as some of the desert scenes seemed to gone on forever. None-the-less, it is a story I do think about and will for a while. ( )

Not at all what I was expecting from a Gilman - the same rich characters, descriptions, events, but no quirky funny bits at all. There's some joyful bits - it's not all dark! - but where I would expect Mrs. Pollifax to make a comment about events and make them funny, Caressa merely accepted them, or rejected them. She doesn't have Mrs. Pollifax's quirky mind. Not a bad thing, just not what I was expecting. Caressa is a carny - raised in a carnival, and well educated in tricks (she's a juggler, a pickpocket, a magician...). She gets married to a man who wants to write books about distant places; he takes her along on a voyage through the Sahara, and dies of it. At that point Caressa becomes completely unmoored from who she has been, and has to rebuild herself and her life - through all the chops and changes that happen to and around her. Her carny skills turn out to be very useful, at various points. She is, at various points, a captive of the Tuareg, a caravan traveler passing as a boy, a magic woman, a slave sold thrice in a few days...She is incredibly lucky, though - author's fiat. She gets raped only once, and it turns out to mean freedom and more (that's when the romance shows up - late in the book). She also makes various friends, and the important ones don't die of knowing her. The end of the blind man strikes me as making no sense in context - he's lived and traveled in the desert how long, and now he makes this basic error? He should have been able to tell, long before he lay down to sleep. The whole thing with Jared bothers me, though not nearly as much as what Linton pulled. Though she won that battle - I have no idea what he thought he would gain. It's written as a memoir, in her old age - written so her daughter and granddaughter know what really happened to her. So by the end of the book we've learned what became of just about everyone. One odd thing is how female her family is - Caressa was raised by her mother and grandmother, she connected with various men and then separated again - even Jared disappears (one way and another - he never has a voice in the book again after they separate). By the end of her life, it's Caressa, her daughter, and her granddaughter - no men around any more. I wonder if it was intentional. A very strange book; I'm glad I read it, I'm not at all sure I ever want to reread it. ( )

Really fun period adventure story with elements of magical realism. Second time I've read it - it's that good! ( )