If you are looking for an indigenous author to support in November, then This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger has a great historical fiction read for you. Krueger is a member of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) tribe. This dialogue between a bit so likable character Jack and the teen narrator Odie will give you a good idea of the story.
“Ask me, God’s right here. In the dirt, the rain, the sky, the trees, the apples, the stars in the cottonwoods. In you and me, too. It’s all connected and it’s all God. Sure this is hard work, but it’s good work because it’s a part of what connects us to this land, Buck. This beautiful, tender land.” Jack in Chapter 20. Odie then replies with his theory about how “God is a tornado.” which refers back to when a tornado killed a loving teacher, Mrs. Frost. The book was originally published in 2019 and is great as an audiobook coming in at 14 hours and 19 minutes on regular speed versus 464 pages of hard copy.
The following discussion of the story contains spoilers!!!
Odie O’Banion narrates the story as a young boy who is looking back and narrating the story as a kid. The other main character is his older brother, Albert. After their father dies they are sent to a Native American boarding school in Fremont County, Minnesota. (The school is based on a real school in the town of Pipestone and the Pipestone Indian Training School.). Odie and Albert are white but fit right in with the other kids.
The “school” is run by Mr. and Mrs. Brickman. They are cold towards the children and live in a nice fancy house with good food. The kids meanwhile live at an old army compound with barely enough food and nothing but the bare minimum. We later learn about Mrs. Brickman’s earlier life when she worked in a brothel. We also later learn Mr. Brickman is making money with bootleg liquor. There is DeMarco at the school who doles out the punishments such as whippings. The punishments can be for anything from speaking a Native American language to not doing chores fast enough. There is also Franz who is an amazing person taking care of the kids and trying to thwart DeMarco’s cruelty. Two other main teachers there are Ms. Stillman and Mrs. Frost both of which are nice to the kids.
Odie and Albert befriend Mose, an orphaned boy whose tongue was cut out when he was a child. He’s deaf which makes him an instant friend since Odie and Albert’s Mom was deaf. They communicate through sign language easily. Odie has a gift with the harmonica and telling stories. The harmonica was a gift from his Dad.
Mrs. Frost is a kind widow who teaches at the school. Everyone loves her daughter, Emmy. Mose, Odie, and Albert all treat her like a little sister. There is an instant connection between the three boys and the Frost girls. Mrs. Frost offers to adopt Odie, Albert, and Mose, but she is killed by a tornado a day later. The boys go and dig Emmy out of the rubble. At the funeral, Odie plays a special song for her with the help of Ms. Stillman. Then he runs off to her house to get a picture he remembers of Mr. and Mrs. Frost with Emmy. He wants Emmy to have it since he can’t picture his Mom anymore. For running off Odie is whipped and sentenced to solitary confinement for leaving school property. DiMarco makes Albert and Mose hold Odie while he is whipped. That night, DiMarco comes to Odie, and Odie worries he’s going to be sexually assaulted since rumors have always been that DiMarco is a sexual predator. Instead, he takes Odie to the quarry bragging that he killed Billy an Indian boy Billy stood up for and refused to let DiMarco discipline him. DiMarco tries to kill Odie but Odie fights back and pushes DiMarco over the edge into the quarry. It’s a long fall into jagged rocks so he assumes he’s dead.
Meanwhile, the Brickmans locked Emmy up in a room claiming they are going to adopt her. Odie convinces Albert and Mose to run with him. Odie wants his harmonica back though. He goes to drag Mr. Brickman out of bed to get it back. When they break into his room Ms. Stillman is in his bed. The boys threaten to reveal his affair if he doesn’t cooperate. They get the harmonica, letters from the boys' family members they were never given, and lots of money. Mr. Brickman pulls a gun on them but Franz comes to their rescue.
The boys decide the best escape route is to go down the Gilead River in Mrs. Frost’s canoe. Odie starts reading the letters and finds one from a relative of theirs named Aunt Julia. Odie decides he has to find their relatives. The letters contain money from relatives of the boys at the school for everything from Christmas presents and train money to come home. Emmy starts talking in her sleep and tells Odie to put two $5 bills in his shoe. He does it and uses the money to get himself out of a bind later. Everything is going okay until they encounter the “one-eyed pig scarer” called Jack. He makes them go to his farm at gunpoint. He locks Emmy in the house and makes the boys work in his orchard. We learn Jack’s wife and daughter left him. He’s a horrible alcoholic. Jack gets angry with Emmy and Albert goes to protect her. Jack is about to shoot Albert, but then Odie shoots Jack with Mr. Brickman’s gun. They go on the run again thinking Jack for dead.
Next on their adventure, they run into a religious revival run by Sister Eve. She claims to have the power to cure people. While she does seem to have a gift, she is definitely exploiting people. Sid is the money man and has pull over Eve somehow. Eve sees that Emmy has a gift of somehow seeing minor, small things in the future of some people. They both use rattlesnakes to show they have defeated the devil. One of them escapes and bites Albert. Odie had thrown out the anti-venom thinking it was Sid’s hooch. Now they are told to pray for Albert to cure him. It is discovered that Emmy has seizures and she has one while Albert is sick.
Odie finds a shantytown and befriends a family named the Schofields. He starts falling for their daughter. Mose meets Hawk Flies at Night called Forrest and Mose learns his people’s history. The Sioux relatives and ancestors' treatment makes Mose angry. They see Hawk drinking from a square hooch jar which is the same kind Mr. Brickman used. So the boys think he’s there to turn them into the Brickmans for the $500 reward. Forest was not going to turn them in and comes to their rescue later.
They leave when they learn that the Brickmans are not far behind them. Odie, Albert, Mose, and Emmy go to St. Paul, where they meet Gertie Hellman and her partner Flo. They run a café.
Odie then goes on to St. Louis and tracks down the woman he knows as Aunt Julia. Over the next few days, he learns that Julia is his mother and that she gave birth to him in the brothel. So he and Albert are actually cousins.
Julia knows Mrs. Brickman and they were not on good terms. The reason why Mrs. Brickman had Odie whipped and beaten so bad was to get revenge on his Mom. Julia and Mrs. Brickman fight, then fall out a window, leaving Mrs. Brickman dead and Julia in a coma. As Odie watches over her in the hospital, he is joined by Albert, Mose, Emmy, and Sister Eve. He starts questioning everything and Sister Eve tells him to imagine the ending he desires.
So the Epilogue has Odie saying Julia survived her coma and opens a dress shop. Odie marries Maybeth Schofield. Emmy stays with Sister Eve, who teaches her to use her abilities for good. The ending leaves us with the question of what was real or not real in the story.
Some say the book is similar to Odyssey by Homer since Odie is short for Odysseus and he goes on a journey. Some say the book is a modern Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain since they go down the River. Others say it is a new spin on Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck but I don’t see that comparison at all. I think it’s more like The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. I like The Lincoln Highway a bit more especially when you compare the endings.
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