One of the in-game characters, resistance fighter Manon Batiste, is based on Deschamps Adams, who also served as a consultant for at least one game in the Medal of Honor series. I picked it up after surfacing from a deep dive into an internet rabbit hole that began while replaying Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, a video game set during the war. “The last book I finished was The Secret War of Helene de Champlain, an autobiography of World War II resistance fighter Helene Deschamps Adams. But as a firsthand account of this peculiar time in American history, none are more readable.” - Eleanor Cummins Readers will notice ways in which the book falls prey to many of the issues of its era, from speculative archaeology to racist depictions of Native Americans.

There are stories of sheriffs and gunslingers, prophets and swindlers, cowpunchers and bear hunters-and Morley Cleaveland is an active participant (and clear-eyed recorder) in every outlandishly true tale. Unlike other memoirs, which focus solely on the emotional trials and tribulations of the author, No Life for a Lady is more like an autobiography of the land itself. In 356 pages, Morley Cleaveland jovially recounts her experiences growing up in the wilds of New Mexico, a territory at the time of her birth in 1874 and a state by the time of her death in 1958. “Agnes Morley Cleaveland’s No Life For a Lady had me by the dedication page: To ‘ll those Pioneer Women whose stories can never be adequately told but whose courage, endurance, and determination to hold fast to their highest ideals contributed to the making of America.’ What followed exceeded all expectation.

Agnes morley cleaveland