The Indifferent Stars Above

From the #1 bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat and Facing the Mountain comes an unforgettable epic of family, tragedy, and survival on the American frontier

“An ideal pairing of talent and material.… Engrossing.… A deft and ambitious storyteller.” — Mary Roach, New York Times Book Review

In April of 1846, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves, intent on a better future, set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings on a trek that would become a landmark tale of westward expansion. Seven months later, after joining a party of pioneers led by George Donner, they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. In early December, starving and desperate, Sarah and fourteen others set out for California on snowshoes, and, over the next thirty-two days, endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors.

In this gripping work of narrative nonfiction, New York Times bestselling author Daniel James Brown sheds new light on one of the most legendary events in American history. Following every painful footstep of Sarah’s journey with the Donner Party, Brown produces a tale of survival both spellbinding and richly informative.

This epic of survival puts you inside one of history’s most harrowing episodes—

• A Woman's Perspective: Follow twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves, a newlywed whose dreams of a better future turn into a nightmare in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
• Desperate Winter Journey: Witness the unfathomable hardships endured by Sarah and fourteen others as they attempt to cross the mountains on handmade snowshoes in the dead of winter.
• Meticulously Researched History: Discover the unvarnished truth as the author sheds new light on the legendary Donner Party, drawing from deep archival research to tell a spellbinding story.
• Against the Odds: A gripping account of family, tragedy, and the brutal realities of pioneer survival on the American frontier when the first heavy snows fall.