Desert Hearts

by Marjorie Farrell

The beautiful young widow of a kindly but aging cavalry officer, Elizabeth Woolcott is drawn to a handsome Irish immigrant, Sergeant Michael Burke, but their love is threatened by mounting tensions... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451406788
• ISBN13: 9780451406781
• Release Date: May 1996
• Publisher: Topaz
• Length: 346 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Thoughtful, poignant and satisfying read

I am an admitted fan of Marjorie Farrell and have been in the process of mopping up her back list. Desert Hearts was not what I expected, particularly as it came with the usual tasteless, moronic Topaz cover. In the broadest sense, this novel is a comparison and contrast of cultures in the mid 19th century. Although on the surface, an examination of the relations between an Irish Catholic, a Bostoninan of Puritan descent and the mysticism of the Navajo might seem unworkable, Marjorie Farrell has produced a deeply moving, very sympathetic and carefully researched story.In brief, 12 year old Michael Joseph Burke is sent from famine-stricken western Ireland in 1848 by his father to America - a last ditch attempt to keep at least one of his family alive and provided with opportunity. Elizabeth Rush is 14 when her family migrate west from Boston and she is the only survivor when the family are attacked by Comancheros. Significantly, at this very important juncture in her life, she witnesses the rape of her mother.Rescued by the US Cavalry and, particular, Lt Thomas Woolcott, she survives and eventually marries her rescuer. She has been married happily to a good man, and living at Ft Defiance (now on the Navajo Reservation) when Master Sergeant Michael Burke comes in to her life.Elizabeth begins a struggle: to overcome her prejudices against "shanty Irish", against her growing and surprising attraction to Michael and to have friendships with a Navajo couple despite the ire and distaste of many of those at Ft Defiance. Michael struggles too - against his growing, deep and full love for Elizabeth - everything he thinks he cannot have.Widowed, she eventually marries Michael and they have a deeply passionate relationship in due course. However, the story moves to focus on the exile of the Navajo from their own lands to a remote and inhospitable part of New Mexico. This is a tale of great sadness and is exceptionally well drawn. If you have read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" or any other works about such events as the "trail of tears" you will be deeply moved by how the author portrays the prejudice, ignorance, and hatred that people displayed against the Navajo. And yet, the point of the story is that Michael, as diaspora Irish, can wholly sympathise with the Navajo. Elizabeth, as an orphan, artist and very compassionate woman is deeply moved and she, too, comes to empathise with the Navajo.The author does an excellent job of integrating the faith of a devout Catholic with that of the mystical Navajo and Elizabeth, somewhat in the middle, eventually can see the common spirituality and humanity deep within us all.High praise for this work. Reading it, as I did, soon after Carla Kelly's "Here's to the Ladies", I have been pleasantly surprised to read two such excellent works about the American frontier west set during the Indian wars. Marjorie Farrell is an excellent and underrated novelist. Her prose is first class, her research shines thro