Huck Finn Updated

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, four orphans, ages 16 downwards, create their own family and escape the abusive Lincoln School for Indians in Minnesota, heading to St.Louis in a canoe. Murder, mayhem, and magic ensue. Nurturing hope, pursued by evil throughout their entire journey, they are helped and harmed in turn by the other people they encounter. On the rivers and in the towns they meet gamblers and thieves, whores and liars, faith healers and phantoms—both good and bad among them, the flotsam and jetsam of humans caught up in a time of huge upheaval.

This novel is a fantastic story of the real America, still on hand, with its hustlers and innocents trampled. Krueger also highlights the spiritual life of youth in this coming of age story: their sense of justice and mercy, their judgements of self and others, their seemingly clear vision of the hypocrisy of adults, their sense of wonder and gratitude.

This Tender Land is an adventurous and tender book. Though his villains have progressed to a place beyond redemption in this life, hurting children for their own ends, Krueger still leaves us with compassion for those who make bad choices in life and hope for those in horrific circumstances.

As I read, the adventures of Huckleberry Finn immediately came to mind, and indeed in the afterward the author pays homage to Twain. The rascal Huck was always more adult than Tom Sawyer—he had to be—and the technique of telling the story from the perspective of a main character recalling (and probably embellishing) the past works really well here. William Kent Krueger is a great writer, but like his narrator, he’s a wonderful storyteller, moving things along while making us care—and that’s harder.

There’s something for everyone in this book: drama, humor, and heart—with a touch of magic and mystery as well. It would make a fantastic read-aloud to share, an engaging book club book. It really is one for the ages, I hope to become a classic—one of the best books of the year. (Thanks to Atria and Netgalley for the digital review copy.)

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Cassie isn't quite sure how she ended up trading her job as a firefighter in her Austin hometown to move to Massachusetts for a year to help out her mom—the woman who abandoned her husband and Cassie on the disastrous night of Cassie's sixteenth birthday a decade ago. But her dad thinks she should, so she says goodbye to everyone who cares about her to move clear across the country. She knows it won't be easy: Austin's firefighters are integrated and funded, with respect for women coworkers and budgets that supply the latest technologies. Small town Massachusetts is sexist and underfunded. Actually, Cassie kind of needed to get out of town: she was getting a plaque for bravery as a firefighter, but the substitute bigwig presenter was a big shock: the boy who ruined her birthday and solidified her distrust of romance. He patted her butt. On stage. Firefighter reflex, she punched him on contact. On stage. That's enough reason to get out of town while the smoke blows over, even if it does mean dealing with her mom, who she hasn't seen since the morning of that fateful sixteenth birthday. Cassie has done a good job of protecting her heart up until now, but the stress of proving herself on the new job and dealing with her mom just might crack it, especially dealing with the fire department's other new hire: handsome, caring Rookie. She can't even use his name, she's so attracted to him. Way to lose the job you really need, way to lose the distance you really need, way to get into trouble. Cassie is doing her best to live as an adult, but she has some growing up to do (don't we all, even as we age). Firefighters deal with life and death all the time, but Cassie gets new insights into what can really ruin your life and what can save it. Heart and humor override the drama in this story, making it a fun read. With issues of life and death, fate and forgiveness, that's hard to pull off. Recommended! (I received an Advance Readers copy from St. Martin's for review.)


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Loving, Loss, and Living On

The Way through the Woods: Of Mushrooms and Mourning by Long Litt Woon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A sweetly meandering memoir of loss and living. Litt Woon met her husband in Norway, where she had come from Malaysia to study anthropology. They got married, she stayed in Norway, and they had a lovely marriage as anthropologist and architect until one day with no warning her husband Eiolf fell dead as soon as he walked into work.
This is not a memoir about grief, however—it’s a memoir about moving through grief, that metaphorical forest where we get lost between life and death. Long went through the trauma of losing a spouse, dealing with details, joining a grief group, wondering how to go on. One day she decided to do on her own something Eoilf and she had talked about, checking out the course, “Mushrooms for Beginners.” Norway is huge on forest foraging, and expert volunteers check mushroom harvests for edibility for foragers right outside the forest.
She didn’t realize she was finding her way back to life until she was already on the path, her appetite awakened with novelty and sensation after months in the grey lands of grieving.
What is most fascinating to me is seeing the world of grief and the world of mushrooms through a different cultural lens: Long is Malaysian by birth culture, embedded in Norwegian culture, not at all American. Whether due to culture, personality, or training as an anthropologist, Long has an ability to give us detached and caring insight into her journey of losing the love of her life and then discovering the passion of an avocation.
You don’t have to be grieving or a mushroom geek to enjoy the book—people interested in nature, science, and other cultures will find points of interest. And of course we have all experienced loss in some way, to be able to connect with the story. There will definitely be too many mushroom details for some folks—I give you permission to skim; the other parts of the book and pleasure of reading how much joy Eiolf left behind is inspiring.


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Love and War Are Red and Blue, But Which Is Who?

This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Of all the science fictiony fairytale endtimes books, I place This is How You Lose the Time War at the top with Sheri S. Tepper’s Beauty. Time War reads like a mashup of Good Omens, Griffin and Sabine, and ST Next Generation, told in the voices of Mahmoud Darwish and Thomas Harris.
What it has in common with Beauty is the time travel element; what differs is the generational voice. Tepper’s book was published in 1991 and is grounded in history and community; Time War is current, ungrounded in the cloud of chaos physics, a paso doble of the I and Thou of humanity’s love affair with itself danced through parallel universes.
Beauty is a faceted gem, a perfect story; Time War is a work of art, a mind worm.
Recommended.


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How Are We Supposed To Go On Living?

A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are a few life-changing events that happen for everyone, but the added elements of tragedy and trauma change one's world in ways like no other. We don't know the details of Annabelle's tragedy—though we have good guesses—for quite a while. Teenager Annabelle is running from Seattle to Washington, D. C., trying to outrun her grief. I picked up the book thinking that it might give me insight into why people do these runs for a cause; it did. The story is told in the present tense as she runs; we learn through flashbacks about why Annabelle feels so guilty and powerless.
She's at the local hamburger joint and her PTSD is triggered and she starts running until she gets to the next town, with no intent and no plan; running means she's doing something, even if it's crazy. She just starts running, because she does track and that's her thing. Her family ends up supporting her decision and her grandpa follows along in his RV; Annabelle's family provide the perspective and comic relief necessary in a book that deals with dark material.
This is a young adult novel that gives a glimpse into the mind of a contemporary young woman in high school. The hormone-driven angst and bounce between hope and despair of adolescence is further exacerbated in our modern world, where nowadays even suburban and rural schools are fenced like prisons and predators stalk the halls (though that has always happened). Annabelle learns a lot on her journey, and is finally able to come to terms with the fact that her life will never be the same.
Interactions with her grandpa and people they meet along the way balance the grueling days of running and bleeding and Annabelle's circular thoughts, widening her world. Even though precious opportunities have been lost, love still surrounds her, and Annabelle finds the strength and resolve to reach out and live in hope again.
And I found out that people do this kind of thing because even when you feel powerless, you need to do something. Recommended.


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Human Nature

Spring by Ali Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Testament, indictment, plea? It's amazing how a British author writing about European refugee camps depicts the situation in America's detention centers described today. It's either a plot of the left or right or a description of human nature. The book opens with horrid Twitter ranting, an irrepressible muddy stream of consciousness description of media influence in the modern world; once you get past that, if you can, there's the story of Richard, a filmmaker who's grieving the loss of a friend, a muse; he's also grieving his youth and lost chances. There's Brit, who works in that place, that "detention center", a person just trying to get by. There's the story of how their stories intersect, an adventure. There's a mysterious young girl who seems to achieve miracles by speaking truth to power. There's mystery, hope, despair, resolution. There's a lot of buttons pushed in your internal psyche, as the author intends. Smith forces you to deal with the fact that the conditions that created World War II are even more active in the current world. And the unavoidable realization that if you look at history with open eyes and heart, the majority of us are the descendants of victims, persecutors, survivors, and collaborators. What choices will we make in our lives, whose descendants will judge us? Who are we, in our choices, in our souls? Just ordinary people, trying to get by.
(*I received an advance copy from Norton for review; much gratitude and consternation followed, as you've just read.)


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Music for the Heart

Ellie and the Harpmaker by Hazel Prior

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Ellie and the Harpmaker is just the kind of sweet and quirky British novel I adore, highlighting both the beautiful and the grit of real life, airbrushed a bit. Ellie is a closet creative who needs some joy in her life, and one day she meets Dan, who lives in the hills of Exmoor and builds harps. Dan loves to make harps. He names them. Dan is a very noticing and precise sort of person, only not the kind of noticing and precision that most people expect. He's not very interested in money, for instance; his sister manages his business for him. He's interested in wood and pebbles and in making harps. Celtic harps, not orchestra harps. Ellie admires a harp made from cherrywood; learning to play is one of her heart's desires, and Dan gives her the harp as a present, so she can learn to play. He tells Ellie his girlfriend can teach her, she's a professional harpist. But when Ellie gets home, her husband convinces her it's a wacko idea and she should return it. Dan has a problem with the idea of returning a gift; it's her harp, but she can leave it with him and take lessons at the barn, he suggests. Ellie is unsure of herself, but desperate for beauty and light in her life. From this desire, change and consequence fall like dominoes.
The tale is told in chapters that alternate voices, one Dan's and the other Ellie's. This is good, because it helps you understand from different points of view the rest of the motivations and actions that create quite a fine mess, soap opera style, before Ellie earns her happy ending. What is Dan's girlfriend hiding from him (other than the fact that she might not be his girlfriend anymore)?Just how controlling is Ellie's husband, and how much does she contribute to her own unhappiness? Does Ellie eventually learn to play the harp? Can Dan expand his interests to trains? These questions and more are answered in this beautifully written, noticing book. I enjoyed reading about the different resonances of wood, harp construction, and the simplicity of Dan very much. Highly recommended, especially for book clubs—so much to discuss!
Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley for an electronic galley to review.



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