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The Expedition

by Clayton Bailey

Told largely from the point of view of a woman who must masquerade as a man, Clayton Bailey’s first novel, The Expedition, explores sexual identity through the lens of historical fiction.Wearing trousers and binding her breasts flat to her chest, Joanna Reid works at the male-only profession of photographer in the mid-18th century. When Captain Aaron Masse, who is leading an expedition to discover a route for a transcontinental railroad, asks her to join as the team’s photographer, she cannot resist. In doing so, she accepts the problems – physical and otherwise – of a full-time life as a man.

This gender switch causes Reid many complications, all of which Bailey handles well. Over the course of the trip, we even see Reid fashion a funnel made of water-proof hide that can be fitted between her legs, enabling her to take a manly piss in the woods. This kind of detail speaks engagingly of the flimsy division between the sexes.

However, Bailey insists upon having his characters speak such insights aloud. In one of his diary entries, after secretly discovering the truth of Reid’s identity, Masse writes: “Reid is, in her way, as much exploring new terrain, of a social sort, as this expedition explores the nation’s geography.” This is true, of course, but it’s hard to believe that Masse, a patriarchal ex-soldier, would be able to clearly articulate this conclusion as quickly as he does. Though Bailey masters the technical side of the historical novel – giving ample evidence of careful research into colonial travel, native customs, and arcane photography methods – he allows his characters an understanding of sexual identity that is far too modern, a perspective that took a society decades to embrace.

If readers can get past these moralizing monologues, there is an epic adventure tale here, full of love beyond sex and tribe, extravagant descriptions of nature, and exhilarating rides down rapids.

 

Reviewer: Micah Toub

Publisher: Great Plains Publications

DETAILS

Price: $19.95

Page Count: 256 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 1-894283-40-6

Released: Dec.

Issue Date: 2004-1

Categories: Fiction: Novels