FOR GRAND AMBITION

1. Why were Glen and Bessie Hyde drawn to one another? Shortly after she met Glen, Bessie claimed "she could already see how it would be: she would live through his courage, just as he would live in her inventiveness, her emotion." Did this turn out to be true? How important was the river journey to their marriage?

2. What were Bessie's reasons for going down the river? How did those reasons change as the trip wore on?

3. Throughout Grand Ambition, the narrative of Glen and Bessie Hyde is interspersed with the first-person narrative of Reith Hyde. Reith's observations on the young couple provide a different but comparably revealing perspective on their story. Bessie's father is also an important character in the novel. How might he have told the story of Glen and Bessie's adventures together?

4. How does Grand Ambition fit into the American tradition of novels about the West? Lisa Michaels is one among many contemporary writers who have explored to the history of the West and its place in the American imagination through fictionalized accounts of its uncharted days. How does her vision compare with that of Wallace Stegner or Cormac McCarthy? What does it hold in common with earlier writers such as Willa Cather and Jack London?

5. Bessie Hyde was undoubtedly an extraordinary woman. How does she stand out from the other female characters in the novel? How was she unusual among American women in the 1920s? In what ways was she more typical than her ambition suggests?

6. What larger truths does Lisa Michaels' novel illustrate about fame as a motivation? What relevance does the fate of Glen and Bessie Hyde have to the American imagination today? Is this a particularly American story?

7. Is there any purpose to the kind of feats of daring that Glen and Bessie were attempting? Bessie hoped that "there was a girl out there, awake at her bedroom window, looking over a smug little town, who might take something from her story." Is this her main motivation for making the trip?

8. Why did Bessie think she had to do the things that frightened her?

9. How do issues of class enter into Grand Ambition? Would Glen and Bessie Hyde have pursued their dream had they come from a different class background? What might they have done differently?

10. Why did Lisa Michaels choose to alternate stories from the first-person perspective of Reith Hyde with the narrative of the young couple told in the third person?

11. Do you think Glen and Bessie would have attempted this trip during World War I or the Great Depression? In what way was their adventure the product of the time in which they lived?

12. Do you fault Reith Hyde for not trying to stop his son from attempting this trip? Did you identify more with Glen's confidence or Reith's caution?

13. What role does visual and written testimony play in the story of Glen and Bessie Hyde?

14. Superficially Bessie and Greta Grandstedt had little in common, yet Greta seems to be the only woman Bessie relates to in the novel. What did they see in one another?  

FOR SUNK WITHOUT A SOUND

1. After Glen and Bessie Hyde disappeared in 1928, a legend grew up around them, much of it based on conjecture. Bessie changed from a willing and enthusiastic partner in the venture to a hapless victim; Glen changed from a quiet, if stubborn, gentleman to an ignorant brute that Bessie may have been forced to murder. The only evidence to support this change is Bob Francy’s suspect 1948 interview, in which he claims to have heard that someone saw the Hydes quarrel at Hermit Rapid and saw Glen force Bessie back into the boat. Given the shakiness of this lone statement, why do you suppose the myth changed so dramatically?

2. In his research, Dimock found almost no descriptive material on Bessie Hyde’s personality or emotions. How well did you come to know her in the book, and what things led you to this?

3. Many today consider Glen Hyde foolhardy to have attempted the river in a scow, with no life jacket. But given that Hyde’s mentor, the famous boatman Harry Guleke, ran scows all his life without ever wearing a life jacket, was Hyde out of line?

4. Rollin Hyde’s devotion to his son seems extreme to some--the sheer number of miles he marched, the extent of his monetary indebtedness, the length of time he spent at the Grand Canyon searching for them. How does one define a reasonable search for a lost child?

5. Is there a hero in this book? Who and why?

6. Dimock investigates four different latter-day accounts of a re-emergent Glen or Bessie Hyde. Although he discounts each of them, he does not state for certain that none of them could be true. Which of Glen and Bessie’s possible fates seems most plausible to you? Why?

7. In 1928 the idea of running the Colorado was nearly unheard of, especially in a homemade boat. Could there even be an analogous adventure in today’s world of GPS positioning systems and satellite telephones?

8. Biographers typically stay out of their own narrative. Why does Dimock insert himself repeatedly into the tale of the Hydes? How does Dimock’s personal story add to--or detract from--the story of the Hydes?

9. In trying to determine the fate of the Hydes, Dimock delves into the unrelated river adventures of Jim Ervin, Jimmy Brooks, and Chet Bundy. Do these help you understand the Hydes’ fate? Or are they extraneous to the story?

10. Dimock says that often the only difference between a hero and a damned fool is the tiniest bit of luck. If the Hydes had lived and succeeded in their journey, how do you think they would have been received by the press and the public? Would their trip have been as sensational as their disappearance? Would their cumbersome boat and lack of life jackets have been used to add to or detract from their feat? Would they have been portrayed as brave or foolhardy? What do you think they might have gone on to do?

FOR GRAND AMBITION AND SUNK WITHOUT A SOUND

1. The two books are based on the same tale, and to a large extent, tell a similar story. In Sunk Without a Sound , Dimock mixes what facts he can find with his own experience to try to tell the Hydes’ story. In Grand Ambition , Lisa Michaels uses the basic story of the Hydes to explore the fate of a young marriage under extraordinary stress. How do these two approaches to the same story compliment each other? How to they clash?

2. Compare and contrast the main characters in the two books: Bessie, Glen, Reith/Rollin. How do their roles differ in the two books?

3. Although the main characters are recognizable as the same people in both books, one is strikingly different: Greta Granstedt. Compare and contrast the two Gretas. Do they play similar roles in the life of Bessie? What literary purpose does Michaels’ portrait of Greta serve?

4. The historical novelist Russell Banks says he feels that if he knows a story well enough, he can get closer to the truth by writing fiction than he can when encumbered by the restrictions of nonfiction. Although it was not Lisa Michaels’s intent to define the “true story, ” do you think she was able to show some sides of the real Glen, Bessie, or Reith/Rollin that Dimock was unable to approach?

5. Glen and Bessie Hyde’s tale captivates most people who hear it. What intrigues you most about these characters and their tale? Their youth and good looks? The mystery of their disappearance? If a pair of little known male prospectors disappeared, would we be as interested?

6. Having read both books, can you separate the details of fact and fiction? Is it important?

7. In a tale such as this, where much is unknown, do you prefer the fictional or nonfictional approach? Why?

8. Does having read these two books make you want to go down the Colorado River? Or NEVER want to go down the river?

9. Adolph Sutro appears in both books for two days on the river with the Hydes. Compare his role in the two books. Benign? Menacing? Irrelevant?

10. Bessie’s first husband, Earl Helmick is a disagreeable man in Grand Ambition , whereas in Sunk Without a Sound it appears Bessie may have taken advantage of his good will. How do you picture him, and why?

A “new” letter from Bessie raises new questions

A 2003 article by Brad Dimock with some additional discussion questions

A friend in Utah recently received, through friends of friends, a previously unknown letter from Bessie Hyde. Bessie wrote it to her aunt and uncle, Ruth and Millard Haley of Pittsburgh, hours before her departure from Green River, Utah. The letter sheds some new light on the Hydes as they prepared to depart on their fatal river journey. On a factual basis, Bessie mentions the scow as five-and-one-half feet wide, not five feet wide as most other sources state. If accurate, this would make the boat a bit more stable, yet less maneuverable than previously thought. Bessie also mentions a recent visit to Pittsburgh—perhaps on her 1927 trip East with Glen. More significant, I think, is the vagueness of their plans and the lack of any mention of writing, publicity, or the setting of records.

This aggravates a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind. When I wrote Sunk Without a Sound I tried to rely on factual data instead of tumor and myth. Yet I may have inadvertently bought into the prevalent “record-setting and publicity” motive for the Hydes’ adventure. Reviewing the data now, I can find little factual basis for that assumption, other than the cryptic notes made by Dock Marston on an interview with Adolph Sutro made some thirty years after the Hydes perished. (Sutro had ridden with the Hydes for two days below Phantom Ranch and been the last to see them.) Yet the notes of the interview did not reveal what the questions were, or the actual verbatim responses. And in previous correspondence between Marston and Sutro, Sutro claimed to remember very little about the trip.

In fact, if Bessie’s letter is at all indicative of their trip plans, it appears they were simply on a grand adventure, much as Glen and his sister Jeanne had been on their Salmon River journey two years earlier. Any strong thoughts of publicity may have come much later-on the river when Sutro was with the Hydes; later, in the evolution of Sutro’s memories; or even in Marston’s much-abbreviated question-and-answer notes with Sutro.

The lessons to me as a historian are to beware of myth, avoid assumptions—mine or another’s—and be vigilant to the power of suggestion on memories and perceptions. And remember that people often hear what they intend to hear—the best sources are nearly always those recorded at the time by those who were directly involved. With that, here’s Bessie:

Footnote from Brad Dimock: I was able to track the source of this letter back to Millard and Ruth Haley’s only living child, Sarah Louise Turan. She was a toddler when the letter was written and was the “Sally Lou” in the letter. Upton was her elder brother. Unfortunately, Ms. Turan could shed little other information on the story of the Hydes.

Reprinted from the Boatmans Quarterly Review, Fall 2003

Questions for discussion:

1) Does this letter change the story as you perceived it in Sunk Without a Sound? How so?

2) Could this letter be from the Bessie in Grand Ambition? Why or why not?

3) What do you believe the Hydes’ motivation for making the trip really was?