Windsong
Kelly Ferjutz
Forest Hill Publishing LLC

Despite the fact that romance novels sell big, they are frequently put down as fairy tales of a sort, fluff with not much in the way of redeeming literary value. Gorgeous boy and luscious girl meet, there's instant love and/or lust, but complications keep arising, first on one side, then on the other, until after a few hundred pages, love finally conquers. But judging by Kelly Ferjutz's Windsong, this is an attitude both unfortunate and inaccurate. Windsong is a fantasy, rather than a fairy tale, and like other artistic examples of fantasy, it provides the reader excellent insights into and understanding of particular problematic matters in human society.

Windsong takes place in Michigan in 1837. The title character is a beautiful Indian woman who, the year before, had been forced to marry the young chief-to-be of a local tribe, who managed to get her pregnant before he died of smallpox. As the story begins, Bear Dancer, the old chief and Windsong's father-in-law, has set out to find an acceptable new husband who will be a proper father to the two-month-old baby, Sky Warrior, next in line to be chief. But first, Bear Dancer and his entourage of advisors stop on Mackinac Island to report the death of his son to the Indian agent there, and given that it is January and freezing-cold, he leaves Windsong and Sky Warrior on Mackinac until spring, when he will presumably return with the new husband. On Mackinac Island, Windsong meets young Etienne Nicolet, an Indian scout. Their exchange of glances probably melted snowbanks for miles around. Etienne engineers the situation so that Windsong and Sky Warrior get a room at Mrs. Haggerty's home, where he himself just happens to be staying. Under the sympathetic and not-too-watchful eye of Mrs. H, the romance blossoms. Etienne is as taken with Baby Sky as he is with Windsong.

But there are problems: Sky's new father must be able to teach the young chief-to-be his Indians ways and heritage, so Bear Dancer will never accept Etienne, a non-Indian, as a worthy husband and father. The second Catch-22 is that if Windsong does marry Etienne without the chief's approval, she must give up Sky to the tribe.

Fortunately, there's a temporary solution. Since smallpox has decimated the Indian population, Bear Dancer and his men are not able to find a suitable husband over the winter, and it will be a while before they can. And under Indian custom, any man and woman may live together as husband and wife during the summer, but must then separate at the Green Corn Ceremony in the fall. So, Etienne and Windsong go off with the tribe, she willing at least to have a few more months with Etienne, he determined to convince the chief and the tribe that he can be a proper husband to Windsong and father to Sky.

The story is suspenseful, but beyond that, Ferjutz's assiduous research (documented at the end of the book) presents a fascinating account of life in both white and Indian cultures in early nineteenth-century Michigan. Primary focus is on white-Indian relations, where Windsong and Etienne come to be excellent historical metaphors for their respective cultures. The information is presented beautifully through the rounded characters, as Ferjutz avoids the twin pitfalls of preachy didacticism and bias. The Indians do have plenty to complain about, regarding their treatment at the hands of whites, but clearly they themselves are far from free of prejudice, stubbornness, superstition, and downright reactionary behavior. Without giving away too much of the story, I'll say that the gradual understanding and acceptance of white customs by Indians, and vice versa, was a very satisfying aspect of the story. I'd be remiss not to mention that Ferjutz writes terrific sex scenes - truly erotic, never clinical, or so sloppy that the reader feels a need to set down the book and wash his or her hands.

I was pleased to learn that Ferjutz intends to develop the story into a multigenerational saga. I'll look forward to following the exploits of these interesting and sympathetic people.

WINDSONG is really an old-fashioned historical novel, with a story about the power of love in the middle of it. In 1837, Michigan became a state. Mackinac Island and the surrounding areas were home to the English, the French and the Indians. It was a peaceable time, after the end of the War of 1812, and the economy was shifting from hunting and trapping to fishing and tourism. Also, in 1837, a small pox epidemic raged through the midwest, killing nearly half the Indians who lived there. Against this background, Windsong, a young Indian woman, a widow and mother of a baby boy, meets Etienne de Nicolet, a French-Canadian of aristocratic heritage, who was a voyageur and is now an Indian agent for the US government. They fall in love, but customs and traditions threaten to keep them apart. Using these same customs and traditions, however, Windsong and Etienne fight to stay together.

WINDSONG is published by Forest Hill Publishing LLC, of East Cleveland, in trade-size paperback. There are two versions: regular print (ISBN 0-9759251-6-4; $15.) and large-print (IBSN 0-9759251-8-0; $22.). Any bookstore can order the book from their distributor; it is available locally at Loganberry Books on Larchmere, and Borders Books at Severance Center in Cleveland Hts. It is also available on-line at Amazon.com or B&N.com, and possibly others as well. Autographed copies are available directly from the author; send a check for the listed amount to P. O. Box 1837, Cleveland, OH 44106. There will be a Local Author Book Fair at Loganberry Books on Wed 11/16, from 5-8PM. Call 795.9800 for information.

 (:divend:)