The True Account

A Novel of the Lewis & Clark & Kinneson Expeditions

Howard Frank Mosher, Howard Frank Mosher

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780618431236
• eBook ISBN:
  9780544391260
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Historical Fiction
• Index: Literature

An explorer and his nephew set out to beat Lewis & Clark to the Pacific in this humorous historical novel by the author of A Stranger in the Kingdom.
In the spring of 1804, Private True Teague Kinneson—schoolmaster, inventor, playwright, and explorer—sets out with his nephew, Ticonderoga, to race Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to the Pacific. Along the way True and Ti encounter Daniel Boone and his six-foot-two spinster daughter, Flame Danielle; fight and trick a renegade army out to stop Lewis's expedition; invent baseball with the Nez Perce; hold a high-stakes rodeo with Sacagawea's Shoshone relatives; and outwit True's lifelong adversary, the Gentleman from Vermont, a.k.a. the Devil himself. And when a beautiful and mysterious Blackfoot girl named Yellow Sage Flower Who Tells Wise Stories enters the tale, things start to get really interesting . . .
A Top Ten Book Sense 76 Selection
Praise for The True Account
"A madcap what-if story . . . a cock-eyed joyride through history." — Washington Post
"Picaresque is too tame a word for this imagined romp . . . A great adventure." — Los Angelese Times Book Review
"The funniest historical novel about the West since Little Big Man." — Denver Post
"Mosher calls to mind the best of Mark Twain—mischievous, touching, and very funny." —Carl Hiaasen
"Clever . . . . Fun and fanciful with much to savor, Mosher's novel demonstrates a boundless imagination and a light comic touch." — Publishers Weekly

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Maps
• Foreword
• Vermont
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• Boston
• 6
• 7
• New York
• 8
• 9
• Monticello
• 10
• The Natchez Trace
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 14
• St. Louis
• 15
• 16
• 17
• Up the Broad Missouri
• 18
• 19
• 20
• 21
• 22
• 23
• 24
• 25
• With the Mandans
• 26
• 27
• 28
• 29
• 30
• 31
• 32
• The Force of Terror
• 33
• 34
• 35
• 36
• 37
• 38
• The Great Falls
• 39
• 40
• 41
• 42
• 43
• 44
• 45
• To the Mountains
• 46
• 47
• 48
• 49
• 50
• 51
• 52
• 53
• Crossing the Bitterroots
• 54
• 55
• Down the Columbia
• 56
• 57
• 58
• Winter by the Pacific
• 59
• 60
• 61
• 62
• 63
• 64
• Chief Mountain
• 65
• 66
• 67
• 68
• Back Matter
• Private True Teague Kinneson’s Epitaph
• About the Author
• Connect with HMH