The Last Letter Home (Emigrant Novels) [Paperback]

In the first volume, "The Emigrants", the author details the emigration of a Swedish family to the New World, grounding it in the reasons for the exodus of so many Swedes from their mother country in the middle of the 19th century. The focus of the first book in this four part opus is on the family, relatives, and friends of Karl Oscar Nilsson, a peasant farmer who unceasingly worked his farm, only to find that, no matter what he did, he could not progress and would continue to live on the cusp of total poverty. The focus of the first book is on their life in Sweden. Gathering up family and friends of the family, the Nilssons decide to take the monumental step of making a fresh start by emigrating to the new world, specifically the United States of America.

The second volume, "Unto a Good Land", focuses on the arrival of the Nilsson family and friends in the United States of America. It details their journey from New York, a journey that was to take them across the Midwest by rail, steamer, and foot, to arrive in the wilds of what would one day be the State of Minnesota. It is in this wilderness that the Nilsson family and friends would homestead and struggle to make a new home. The author regales the reader with the travails this hardy group of settlers would encounter in their efforts to create by the sweat of their brow a new home in the wilderness. The early struggles of the Nilsson family to succeed in what was an unknown frontier is engagingly chronicled.

In "The Settlers", the author continues the story of the Nilsson family and friends. It is the story of a family who struggled to prevail in Minnesota, an alien land of harsh, inhospitable winters and scorching summers. The book continues to chronicle their lives and their adaptation to the adopted country that they would forever call home. It tells the story of the divided Nilsson brothers, each of whom would forge a path alien to the other. The author hones in on the fact that the early settlers were subject to being taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. He highlights the mass migration of disaffected Swedes to Minnesota and details their contribution to the prosperity of that part of the country. The author shows how these early Swedish settlers consolidated themselves into a thriving, bustling community, despite the obstacles and hardships that were to be their lot in the early years of their struggle to make the new land yield to their will.

This last volume, "Last Letter Home" is a bittersweet continuation of the story of the Nilsson family, as well as that of their friends. With the fabric of their lives now firmly woven into the fabric of their adopted country and with the birth of a new generation, they have earned the right to call themselves Americans. With their destiny now firmly intertwined with that of their adopted country, they face new challenges in this new country. Having conquered the wilderness and having achieved a measure of stability and comfort, they believe that the worst is over, only to find themselves thrust into a Civil War. Moreover, the blood of their friends and family would be shed, as a Sioux uprising, an angry outgrowth of broken treaties and governmental promises, wreaks havoc in Minnesota and its surrounding environs, a region mostly inhabited by Swedish settlers. Still, the Nilssons prevail and leave their mark, not only on the pages of these books but in the heart of the reader.

I have enjoyed all four volumes of this well-written and vibrant epic work. The author, a master storyteller, has woven a captivating tapestry alive with period detail and beloved characters. These are books that those who enjoy historical fiction will love reading.