The multi-talented Karen Kondazian, a lifetime member of Actor’s Studio and member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, has well established credentials as an accomplished, award winning actress on stage, screen and television, and as producer, journalist and published author of “The Actor’s Encyclopedia of Casting Directors.” Thus it is not surprising that her debut novel “The Whip” is a winner. It’s an innovative Western inspired by a secretive, real life character named Charley Parkhurst (1812-1879). Born in Rhode Island as ‘Charlotte’, Charley was a woman who chose an effective disguise, headed west and lived the majority of her life as a rough and tumble man known for cursing, drinking and gambling almost as much as for his horsemanship. Charley was an exceptionally skilled and highly trusted stagecoach driver employed by Wells Fargo. Kondazian has used her fertile imagination to craft a riveting tale of historical fiction from a small nucleus of known facts about the reclusive Parkhurst. The emphasis is clearly on fiction as much of the novel bears little resemblance to biographical fact. That does not, however, impede the fascinating tale.

Single nineteenth century women, particularly those from impoverished lower classes, had few options for wage earning. They were excluded from most professions, excepting the world’s oldest and menial, ill paying jobs such as laundress, cook, tavern keep, seamstress or maid. Better educated, higher skilled women might command a better wage with fine embroidery or needlework or as lady’s companion, governess or teacher in that time when secretaries and clerks were jobs reserved for the male sex. A woman who was unwed and lacked a supportive family to help sustain her would have found life almost unendurably challenging. Numerous women affected male garments and served in the King’s Navy during the mid-eighteenth century and there are documented instances of female pirates. French romantic writer George Sand nee Amandine Dupin shocked her contemporaries with her literature, affairs and habit of openly cross-dressing. It is thought as many as 600 women disguised in their father’s, brothers’ or husband’s attire took up arms on both sides of the Civil War. It would have been a desperate measure requiring tremendous resolve and steely determination to live the majority of one’s life guarding against exposure. In the prologue, narrator Timothy Byrne, by now a seasoned newspaperman with the Boston Globe reflects on his introduction to Charley Parkhurst shortly before the latter’s death from cancer with these words, “he gave me the unique understanding of how adventure, freedom, and loneliness seem to go hand in hand.”

“The Whip” was the evocative slang for stagecoach drivers whose jobs required courage as well as expert horsemanship and driving skills as they maneuvered reins to 4 or 6 horse teams along rugged trails fraught with a myriad of natural hazards of drifting sand, mud, steep inclines, floodwaters and ill-maintained bridges as well as very real threats from would-be bandits, horse thieves and hostile Indians. They carried freight, mail and passengers for a surprisingly short time period as it proved to be an unprofitable venture for Wells Fargo and other cargo companies and railroads soon rendered their need obsolete.

The author invented a fanciful story of heroes and villains, romance, murder and vengeance that makes for a remarkable though, in my opinion, an implausible tale. I think it would make for a far more entertaining film than the current transgender film “Albert Nobbs”. The real ‘One-eyed Charley’ went silently to her grave never spilling confidences or leaving behind a diary or correspondence that revealed her truths. Let us hope Karen Kondazian’s voice continues to be heard for many years to come.