Go to Thesaurus.com for all
the ways to say ‘spectacular' and you’ll still come up short looking for words of
praise.
Summer 1932. The country is still reeling from the Depression.
Southwest Minnesota is home to the Lincoln Indian Training School. One
of hundreds of such schools that existed to “Kill the Indian. Save the man.” Indian
children were snatched up and placed in these ‘schools’ where their clothes and
belongings were burned, the customs were mocked, and their language was banned
all in the name of assimilation. Work was the cure. Area farmers would get
cheap labor while the Brickman’s, the school directors, pocketed any money. Any
deviation would get the children beaten by Mr. Dimarco and sent to the ‘quiet
room’ (the Brickman’s term for solitary). The only bits of sunlight are Mrs.
Frost (widowed music teacher) and her 6yo daughter Emmy. And Mr. Volz, a German
handyman/small-time bootlegger. Mrs. Brickman is The Black Witch based on her
wardrobe and unyielding demeanor.
Odie O’Banion, 12, and Albert, his 16yo brother, are orphans
who ended up at this School; the only two white faced residents of the school.
Odie has a talent for the harmonica and is a frequent resident of the quiet
room. Mose, a Sioux, is a good friend and hard worker who can’t speak because his
tongue was cut out as a child. Albert has a knack for most anything mechanical
and is the leader. Odie, Albert, and Mose have worked out a sign language that
most of the children at Lincoln can manage. Little Emmy is their defacto little
sister.
Odie is due for another beating by Dimarco followed by a
night in the quiet room. Dimarco drags him to the edge of a quarry, a place rumored
to be the final resting place for children who had ‘disappeared.’ But Odie fights
back and Dimarco falls over the edge. While hiding, a massive tornado hits the
county, killing many, including Emmy’s mom. Odie brings up that God is a shepherd
to which Albert asks, “What does the shepherd do when he’s hungry? He eats his
flock one by one.” A fear that will haunt Odie throughout his search for home.
For a family.
The Black Witch decides to bring Emmy into her home,
terrifying Emmy. Fearing whatever the law would bring down on Odie and his accomplice-friends,
the boys grab what they can and put a canoe into the Gilead River with St. Louis,
and Aunt Julia. Emmy willingly joins and makes this a foursome of Vagabonds. The
Black Witch spins a yarn about Emmy being kidnapped bringing Minnesota its own
version of the Lindbergh kidnapping.
The Vagabonds plan to canoe down the Gilead River to the
Minnesota River to the Mississippi until they reach St. Louis. Their odyssey gets
them caught (but not turned in) by One-eyed Jack – a farmer who has lost most
everything, including his wife and daughter, to the Depression. Sister Eve, a spiritual
healer for the Sword of Gideon Healing Crusade tries to nurture this ragtag
crew of kids, but an accident puts Albert in a dire situation. Outside of Mankato,
in one of those ubiquitous shantytowns of the Depression era, Odie is
befriended by the Schofield family and the charming Maybeth – Odie’s first
crush. The West Side Flats of St Paul is where Gerte Hellmann runs a kitchen on
the river. Gerte. Got to love Gerte. Anyway, for various reasons, Odie strikes
off for St Louis on his own and does find his Aunt Julie where he learns more
about his family than he could ever have imagined. But he couldn’t be more wrong
that his search for home had been successful.
Krueger is the bestselling author of 17 Cork O’Connor books
about a former sheriff set in northern MN and WI. He’s also done Two standalone
books, one of which, Ordinary
Grace, won the 2014 Edgar Award for Best Novel. That’s the book fiction
version of winning Best Picture. Ordinary Grace was (very) favorably viewed by
us here at MRB. Must be a terrible weight of expectation to follow-up such an
impressive book with another equally so. When reading about This Tender Land, I
found that Krueger had another book done, but he was dissatisfied and started
in on what would become This Tender Land.
And Krueger has scored another winner. I am hardly the one
to say how this book stacks up against Ordinary Grace. I can say that this is a
spectacular outing. A deeply spiritual story without being a ‘religious’ book.
This lengthy account of what these children were subjected to at the Indian
School and what they faced each day in their attempt to reach St. Louis will
tug at your heart like few books do. Think of this as one-part Huckleberry Finn
and one-part Great Expectations with some Of Mice and Men waiting in the wings.
I expect that other reviewers will say that this compares well with other Dickens’
classics. Pretty confidant that this will be many Best of 2019 lists.
Regardless, read this before it becomes the fashionable book
to be carrying under your arm. You won’t regret a single minute of the time needed
to read this fairly big epic. What I say here doesn’t do this book any true justice. Read it for its
telling of the inhumanity behind the treatment of institutionalized Indian children,
for how it reveals the tender feelings in a coming of age story, for how Krueger delicately leads us on a road full of rejection, of the loss of family and freedom,
of redemption, and finally, for the hardest thing of all . . . when all those emotions
are tested . . . of forgiveness.
Release Date: 3 SEP 2019.
And HUGE kudos to the good folks at Atria Books for the advance copy for review. You all are, without question, the best.
East Coast Don
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