This
Tender Land, William Kent Krueger
“If you tell a story, it’s like sending a
nightingale into the air with the hope that its song will never be forgotten.”
The
River We Remember, William Kent Krueger
“The
most frightening thing we do in our lives is to love.”
13 Bookers arrived at the home of Debbie Yarger to
usher in Year 21…. finally old enough to imbibe in adult beverages. Now that we
are “legal,” we must drink responsibly…LOL. Books + Friendships = Book Club. I
have been blessed to have been a part of our incredible Pinnacle book club
since inception and as the adage goes, if you love what you're doing, keep it
going and with the undying support of our members, you’ve enabled me to do
small things with great love. This year as a “bribe” to continue for another
twenty-one years… I received a dozen yellow roses and a twelve-year-old bottle
of my go-to five o’clock beverage. My heart is full!
On
the business side
Welcome new member, Susan Cunyus to Bookers. We hope she enjoyed being a “newbie” and will continue to join us.
The selection committee has chosen October in
the Earth by Olivia Hawker for our October read. It is a historical
literary fiction set in depression-era Kentucky. The wife of a celebrated
preacher is pushed by his infidelity to embark on an impulsive and liberating
journey hopping on a coal train to ride the rails. The complete list has been
sent as an attachment earlier today and please let me know as soon as possible
if you would like to support Bookish again this year with your orders. As in
the past three years, all you must do is tell me what you would like, and I’ll
take care of the rest… but you will have to reimburse me for your
purchases.
Thanks to Patty Evans and Jane Shaw for spending every
waking minute with your nose in a book! We all appreciate your dedication!
Thanks to those of you who have offered to host. We
appreciate your willingness to open your homes to our gang of readers! January
14 and February 11 are the only two not selected.
Each year we collect $10.00 per member for our “slush”
fund which we use for any out-of-pocket expenses that might occur during the
year and to contribute any leftover funds to worthwhile PWC related causes.
Last year Bookers made a $100.00 donation to the PWC Gala Auction as part of a
book basket, and we donated the same amount to the annual Daryl Daniels
Back-to-school fundraiser. If you were not at the September meeting, please
bring your donation to the next one you are able to attend.
Recommended reading: The Covenant of Water,
Abraham Verghese. Threshing of Straw, Kim Catron, The
Revolving Heart, Chuck Augello, The Reading List, Sarah
Nisha Adams, The Violin Conspiracy, Brendan Slocumb, Let’s
Pretend This Will Work, Maddie Dawson.
Everyone read and finished the selections, most
liked/loved but one complaint…the text could have been tighter without as many
details about the land, the surroundings, and the rivers. If you want to learn
more about the author, his biography is attached to the email.
Both Tender Land and River begin with a prologue, which sets the stage, introduces the characters, settings and/or provides a teaser or dramatic event whetting the readers’ appetite. They both end with an epilogue, set outside of the framework of the story, providing closure or resolution, what happens to the characters, and can set up the introduction of a sequel. Both serve as skillful tools in the execution of the stories.
This Tender Land
Prologue
Before God rested after creating man and woman, he
gave us one final gift…the divine source of all that beauty, he gave us
stories. My name is Odie O’Banion and I’m a storyteller. I hope you enjoy my
tales as they unfold through my eyes, thoughts, and emotions giving you direct
access to my inner world. My story begins in Minnesota in the summer of 1932.
I’m a thirteen-year-old orphan living in the Lincoln Training School, a
pitiless place where Native American children forcibly separated from their
parents are sent to be educated. My brother, Albert, and I are the only white
faces among hundreds in the school. My exploits constantly earn the wrath of
the superintendent while my brother is the model citizen. After committing a
terrible crime, we are forced to flee for our lives taking with us our best
friend, Mose, a mute young man of Sioux heritage and a brokenhearted little
girl named Emmy. Together we steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty
Mississippi in search of a place to call home. Over the course of one
unforgettable summer, the four orphan vagabonds’ journey into the unknown,
crossing paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and
traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. My
tale is of killing, kidnapping, and children pursued by demons, a story full of
courage and cowardice, love and betrayal…and hope. Heed my advice, “Open
yourself to every possibility, for there is nothing your heart can imagine that
is not so.”
In a DMN article July 31, 2024 – 973 Native Americans
died in U.S. government’s boarding school system finding marked and unmarked
graves at 65 of more than 400 of these schools established to forcibly assimilate
Native American children into white society. The cause of deaths included
sickness and abuse. The children were isolated from their families, denied
their identities, stealing from them their languages and the cultures of their
Native people. They gave these kids English names, put them through military
drills and forced them to perform manual labor such as farming, brick-making
and working on the railroad.
Epilogue
“There is a river that runs through time and the
universe…a flow of spirit, the heart of all existence, and every molecule of
our being is a part of it. And what is God but the whole of that river?” I’m 80
years old now and as I look back on that summer of 1932 when my
thirteen-year-old self searched to find peace and pin down God. I want to yell,
Odie O’Banion, it’s pointless to worry about the twists and turns or where the
current will take you because you know in your heart there is a mystery beyond
human comprehension. Yield to the river. Embrace the journey.
My tale of 4 orphans who set sail on an odyssey isn’t
quite finished. You must learn where the “greater” river has taken all the
Vagabonds. Let’s begin with Clyde Brinkman confessing to the police that Thelma
shot our father who was Albert’s dad, but not mine – more on that to come – spending
the rest of his life in prison and before he died, he pleaded for forgiveness
from Sister Eve, Emmy, Albert, Mose, and me before meeting his maker. I held on
to my anger unable to forgive until Sister Eve guided me in the right direction
and I let go of Tornado God and realized how profound the words, “you are not
alone” were. Albert and Mose returned to St. Paul, but Emmy stayed with Sister
Eve who tutored her to understand her remarkable gift. I reunited with Aunt Julia
to learn she was my biological mother…the proprietor of a successful brothel –
and my father was a client, identity unknown. After an accident left her in a
wheelchair, she embarked on a new life of designing and making clothes and by
the end of the Great Depression, her gowns were all the rage. Mose tried out
for the St. Louis Cardinal baseball team, spending three years in the majors
before a career ending injury forced him to retire, returning to the new and
improved Lincoln School to coach baseball and basketball and became an advocate
for Native American rights in Washington. On his deathbed, his last words to
his wife and children were, “not alone.”
Albert and I served in the Navy during the war, and he
was quickly put in charge of the powerful engines on an aircraft carrier. He
was always my hero and died as one; my firstborn son is named in his honor and
his Navy Cross still hangs in my office.
My great-grandchildren beg for stories about the 4
Vagabonds and their battle against the Black Witch, but I tell them about the
love story between the imp with his magic harmonica and the princess with the
unlikely name of Maybeth Schofield and how they finally reunited, married, and
lived happily ever after. She died before they were born, so to them it’s just
a lovely fairy tale. I don’t live alone. My sisterly companion is here and
although she’s still subject to “episodes of the divine,” she accepts that some
things are beyond her reach and ability. The two of the Vagabonds are awaiting our
final journey – together as it was in the beginning. In every good tale there’s
a seed of truth from which the story grows. Some of what I’ve told you is true.
A woman who can heal the afflicted…a girl who sees the future. Ask yourself if
these are more difficult to accept than the Big Bang theory when 13.8 billion
years ago the universe exploded into being.
Be like children. Open ourselves to every beautiful
possibility…for there is nothing our hearts can imagine that is not so…as I
said in the prologue.
The River We Remember
Prologue
This story is told by an unidentifiable character with
no name…you can call me the observer. My voice is third person omniscient.
Think of me as a movie director perched above the stage using silent signals to
direct all the action, drama, characters and their dialogue, inner thoughts and
feelings.
People fall in and out of love too easily, but their
land is different. The residents of Jewel, Minnesota love it enough to die or
kill for it. The fictional Alabaster River cuts diagonally across Black Earth
County and most residents think of it as an old friend. But at sunrise or
sunset, the waters churn with aggressive channel catfish…they’re mudsuckers,
bottom feeders, river vultures…the worst kind of scavengers who will eat
anything. This is the story of how they came to eat one of the wealthiest and least
liked citizens, Jimmy Quinn,
who
washed up in the river on Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was called in
1958. It’s a grim portrait of lost souls existing in the darkness of 1950s
America and an eloquent and compelling examination of the horrors of history,
racial discrimination, and deep seeded prejudices. War veteran and Dakota Sioux Indian, Noah
Bluestone, is suspected of the crime, is arrested, and refuses to take part in
his own defense. With subplots galore and a large cast of characters, readers
follow the complex relationships among the townspeople, but the pull of the
mystery, the big story questions, and losing yourself in the lives of the
characters, keep the pages turning until the very last one.
Epilogue
Remember my role is only an observer so if you long to
get to know me more intimately, you’re out of luck. Our lives and those we love
merge to create a river, one that carries us forward from beginning to end and
the river each of us remembers is different as there are many versions of the
stories we tell about the past – some true, others a result of misremembering.
Attorney, Charlie Bauer, now 90 still thinks about the
death of Jimmy Quinn as she enjoys the view across a field where once in the
middle of a raging storm, she stood like a lightning rod. Not far from her home
is the acreage once farmed by the Bluestones, now turned and planted by a good
man, Patrick Quinn. Stories are like the seeds planted in the soil, so this one
began with a man found eaten by catfish in the Alabaster River and it is not
yet finished. Some of the players are no longer a part of it, but the story
goes on and the river continues to flow.
Brody and Angie married and the Derns occasionally
employ Charlie as counsel using her as a sounding board for how each one
remembers the truths of their past. Angie’s son, Scott, now with a repaired
heart, is married with two children but still struggles with “if only” …if only
he hadn’t befriended Del Wolfe…if only they had not gone to the Bluestone farm
and shot the dog, Kyoko might not have been raped as the dog would have barked
a warning and Noah Bluestone might still be alive.
After graduation from college, Del Wolfe enlisted in
ROTC, was deployed to Vietnam returning home in a flag-draped coffin. Scott
places flowers on his grave every Memorial Day along with a page torn from an
old paperback copy of The Naked and the Dead (the debut novel by
Norman Mailer following an army platoon of foot soldiers fighting the
Japanese.)
Police veteran, Connie Graff, kept in touch with Kyoko
until he died of lung cancer. She had settled in Davis, California, remarried
and died of leukemia, most likely from exposure while in Nagasaki. Sam Wicklow
fulfilled his dream of writing a novel titled Spirit River, a
fictional account of the fateful events of the summer in Black Earth County.
Brody Dern died from a fall after saving his brother, Tom, from plunging off
his barn roof. After his funeral, Angie delivered a sealed manila envelope to
Charlie that had resided in their safe deposit box labeled with her name on the
front. Inside was a small silver ring set with a sapphire and written in
Brody’s handwriting was Colleen Quinn. Charlie was certain Brody
understood the truth of Jimmy Quinn’s murder and knew she would also understand
it. Charlie suspected Brody discovered the truth and Marta had told him
everything. If so, he had sworn her to secrecy and made sure any evidence soaked
into the boards of the old shack where Quinn died were gone forever. Brody
stood in silence protecting the innocent until he died.
Charlie spent her days in solitude awaiting the end
purchasing the plot next to her late father due to a small piece of wisdom
Jimmy Quinn’s death offered her…we all die, but some of us – those who are
blessed or maybe just lucky – have the opportunity before that end to be
redeemed. We can let go, forgive others, and forgive ourselves for the worst of
what we are or have been. Quinn didn’t have that chance. His death was a
reminder to be kind to each other and ready to forgive. Brody and Angie
understood this, and Scott will too when he lets go of his guilt. Charlie
intends to lie down in peace and not be haunted by “if only.” So, she sips her
whiskey, reads her books, and occasionally smokes a cigar as she awaits without
fear when she’ll be laid to rest forever beside the moonlit, milk-white flow of
the Alabaster, a river she remembers fondly as an old friend.
Rivers have been used as symbolic elements in
literature for centuries. They are environments that serve as central locations
for pivotal events, none more evident than in Krueger’s works – the rivers are
barriers to overcome, escape routes, sources of livelihood as well as danger. The
Minnesota River in Ordinary Grace is a tributary of the
Mississippi while the Gilead and the Alabaster are both fictional.
Rivers represent the journey of life and the constant
change that comes with it, the passage of time, a peaceful meditative place to
reflect on one’s life, and the boundaries between different worlds as in Heart
of Darkness where the Congo marks the line between civilization and the
darkness of the jungle. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
the Mississippi represents the separation between the civilization of the South
and the freedom of the North. Hemingway’s The Old Man and
the Sea, the Gulf Stream is a metaphor for the unpredictability of
life.
In contemporary literature, authors continue to use
rivers as multifaceted symbols that reflect the changing social, cultural, and
political landscape. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the river
represents both the passage to freedom and the haunting presence of the past,
while in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the river symbolizes hope
and renewal in a world ravaged by disaster.
In short, rivers in literature offer a window into the
deepest parts of ourselves. They’re a reminder that, no matter where we come
from or what challenges we face, we’re all connected by the flow of life and
the power of the natural world.
Our
Discussion:
We talked about how both protagonists,
thirteen-year-old, Odie O’Banion, and thirty-five-year-old, Brody Dern, were
haunted by their actions. Odie blamed Tornado God for all his troubles but
shouldered some guilt for what happened in his life. Brody was haunted by his
war experience and plagued by guilt for his affair with his brother’s wife and
for destroying evidence at the murder scene. Brody’s character didn’t ring true
to some as he was this upstanding citizen in a position of authority but had no
control over his “emotions” to stop the affair with his sister-in-law…no one is
perfect, we’re all flawed, but it was too much of a contradiction to be
believable. We discussed the strongest themes in each novel – In Tender Land,
the suffering of marginalized groups – the plight of Native American Sioux
Indians, the abuse of the children at the Lincoln School, including the
orphaned Indians, and the prejudicial treatment of Jews in St. Paul. A July
2024 newspaper article brought to light a current discovery of horrific
conditions and many deaths of American Indians in one of these institutions.
River focused on the scars of war on returning soldiers, their families, and
communities. Yearning for home and family is a powerful thread in Tender Land
especially for Odie after his parents died but what he learned as he traveled
with his fellow orphans was the best relations are not via blood, but via
understanding. His family was the group of misfits, and his home was the
adventures they shared. We discussed tent revivals which were common during the
timeframe of the novel and how often they are seen as shams, snake-charmers
soliciting funds from desperate people and providing false hope of healing.
Sister Eve was portrayed differently…as her magic was in belief in God and
could only help the true believers. She helped and mentored young Emmy to
understand her gift and how to use it to help others. In River, the author used
the Alabaster as a character, a thread that tied the past to the present as
almost every scene lies on or near the water setting boundaries as if there was
not a world outside Black Earth County. I failed to mention how River supported
the message in J.D. Salinger’s, The Catcher in the Rye. Holden
Caulfield struggled to find his way from adolescence to adulthood highlighting
the pain and bewilderment that goes along with the transformation. He was a
loner who saw himself standing alone in a field at the edge of a cliff, and it
was his job to keep the innocent from falling off. In River, that character is
Brody Dern. And in conclusion, there is a moment when Garnet Dern has the power
to destroy Angie Madison, whom she views as her rival. She decided not to use
that power if Angie promised to tell the truth to Brody. One of our astute
Bookers’ members offered these words of wisdom, “If you worked in a brothel,
destroy your journals.”
“A dream is like a river ever changing
as it flows, and a dreamer’s just a vessel that must follow where it goes.” Garth
Brooks
Happy Reading,
JoDee
