The Dust Bowl 1936-Battered and near death, Billie Bassett gazes up at the stars from the door of a boxcar wondering if she can go on. Yet, in spite of the violence and privation riding the rails, she endures and becomes one of the finest photojournalists in the nation.From humble beginnings in an Indian boarding school in Minnesota to high society in New York City, Billie experiences it all. Her … all. Her pioneering camera work attracts the attention of a group of elite New York journalists who catapult Billie to fame and fortune, but it comes at a price. Her talents are required in the war effort, and she must travel undercover, deep into Nazi Germany as a courier. By her side is the charismatic and acclaimed journalist, Max Rothman, Billie’s harshest critic and dearest friend. But Max does not reveal to her his own clandestine and dangerous agenda.
The Image Seeker is a tale of lost youth, strength, and rebirth set in one of our country’s most tragic eras, The Great Depression and in the cauldron of hatred that was Nazi Germany.
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In the depths of the Depression, a young girl escapes a fire in her Indian boarding school and takes to riding the rails to survive. Her dream is to become a photographer, but without funds or friends she has all she can do to survive. She learns survival lessons from good influences and bad as she travels the country. She joins a carnival as assistant to the itinerant portrait photographer, and marries a skyscraper construction worker. On his death she finds work as a photographer and quickly becomes successful. Wartime brings her to Nazi Germany, where she photographs the Olympics and is drawn into danger and intrigue. Her resourcefulness and quick thinking bring her through.
This is a superb book!! I could hardly wait to read it each day! Wonderful characters – great heroine.
I love stories with strong leading ladies, this one is great.
I could not put this book down! Very well written and captivating from the start
I loved this book.
I enjoyed this book. It was interesting learning about hoboes, how people lived during the depression & how they rose above it with determination & hard work.
I loved this book. It kept me up late at night
The story line was interesting, taking the reader to the plight of the Indians during the 1900’s, plus the difficulty of women in breaking into photography (or anything else, for that matter) during that time. It touched on the story talkers who helped transmit messages during the war, and the danger that was everywhere during the late 30’s and early 40’s.I liked the characters. A good read..
I loved this book
In a nutshell, this was one of the best books I’ve ever read. It is a slice of life, and a thick slice at that, that opened my eyes to a fascinating period of American and international history. After a long and difficult journey, the main character becomes one of America’s first female photojournalists. Successfully competing in a man’s world, and highly creative, she is finally recognized as being among the finest news photographers in the nation. The setting is one of our country’s most tragic eras–the Great Depression–and later moves to Europe where our heroine finds herself fighting the hatred of Nazi Germany while trying to let herself truly love for the first time in her life. This novel was both heart-breaking and heart-warming. Both tragically poignant and wonderfully inspiring. A great novel about a bold and brave woman by a bold and courageous author.
Very good historical data that is relative to what is developing in America today
While enjoyable, it is REMARKABLY similar to a book by William Kent Kreuger (This Tender Land, pub. 2019), to the point where I kept thinking I had read this one before. I would like to know how this “coincidence” came to be.
Billie Bassett is a Chippewa from Lake Mille Lac in Minnesota who is taken from her family at age five and forced to attend an English speaking boarding school. She is allowed to go home only once, for a summer, at age twelve. Otherwise she spends summers working as a housekeeper at the Hoffman farm for a kind older couple who give Billie her first camera. These experiences mean she is fluent in Chippewa and German. At fourteen Billie runs away from the boarding school rather than be sexually abused by a male teacher, and for the next six years she rides the rails with the hoboes. A man named Luther, a former athlete named Felix, and sisters Olive and Heather become her family. When she is working for a carnival, she hooks up with Virgil, a Mohawk, who takes her to New York City. The time frame puts the story at this point in the early thirties and the beginning of the Great Depression. Virgil’s brother gives Billie her second camera and she begins to get recognition for her photography. Billie ends up working as a photojournalist for the New York Times; she also travels to the 1936 Olympics in Berlin so spy on and file reports about the Nazi party. Amanda Hughes has written several series covering the seventeenth through the twentieth century; each book focuses on a strong woman. The Image Seeker is a well researched book. The only flaw is that the book jumps across time periods from 1924 to 1936, and that can be disconcerting. At times the story’s continuity suffered, and the story felt forced.
Different from many others written around this time frame.
Enjoyed it while learning a bit of history.
Interesting story and a subject I was not familiar with – Native Americans using their languages as codes in secret messages to help the Allies in WWII.
The way the book was written though was more of an account of things that transpired rather than a story that takes the reader away. Hence the four stars.
Historical fiction books help me see how the world has been exposed to so many different problems, by making it fiction it provides an opportunity to move between many historical events in the era without jeopardizing the actual history. It amazes me how much true history is involved as I always check the back of the book for their historical references. This author has done her homework.
If you like a Forrest Gump view of history, it’s right for you. Too much coincidence for me. There is no real plot, just a ramble through time.
I enjoyed the book and read it quickly. The main character was interesting and strong. The experiences she had were sometimes unbelievable. The writing painted a good picture. There is a bit of history included and the photography aspect was interesting to me. I also liked the time period it was set in.
I found this book to be quite inspirational. The main character was quit resilient and persistent as a Native American.