This Tender Land

by William Kent Krueger

personal paperback 444 pages plus author's note and discussion questions

Published: 2019

Genre: historical fiction (1932)

ALSO:

Libby audiobook 14+ hours

Read by: Scott Brick

 

I received this book from my daughter-in-law a few years ago. I read it last fall (finally). It's amazing and I have a LOT of post-it notes in it! Recently, I got the audiobook on Libby to enjoy while I drive. It helped refresh my memory, too, so I need to get this blogged. What an amazing, powerful story! I borrowed a copy of Ordinary Grace from my sister, so I'm eager to read that now. This is the first book by this author that I've ever read (and he's a prolific author!).

 

I'm not putting a summary here, but please go find one and read this book! It opens in 1932 in a Minnesota school for Indian childen. Odie O'Banion and his older brother Albert are the only white kids there, having been orphaned when their father was shot to death. I'm not even going to try to avoid spoilers. Just read it. It's amazing.

 

Pg. 17 - "Everyone knew that although Mr. Brickman wore the pants, it was his wife who had the balls."

 

I appreciated a little levity. The Lincoln School and the way the students were treated was horrific. It was nice to laugh a little. Mrs. Brickman definitely earned the moniker "The Black Witch."

 

Page 47 - "The whole point of the sermon, in the end, was that we needed to show our gratitude to Mrs. Brickman and him by not being such pains in the ass. I knew that the selfish way he twisted that beautiful psalm was a load of crap, but I did want to believe that God was my shepherd and that somehow he was leading me through this dark valley of Lincoln School and I shouldn't be afraid."

 

Preaching on the 23rd Psalm and  making it self-serving . . . is not even the worst of the lies they told these children. I was so sad when Odie O'Banion declared that God is a "tornado God" instead of a shepherd.

Page 50 - "If the situation hadn't been so tragic, I'd have found it funny, this heavy white man showing a bunch of Indian kids things that, if white people had never interfered, they would have known how to do almost from birth."

 

I liked the Scout leader Seifert. He truly cared about the kids and wanted to help them. But I agree with Odie's observation here about the irony.

 

Page 51 - ". . . there was one called a bowline that gave me no end of misery. . . . It was a knot favored by sailors, Mr. Seifert had told us, so I finally figured the hell with it. I was never going to sea."

This made me think of my husband and his affection for a bowline knot! But also, kids think, "I'll never . . . " when they honestly don't know what the future will bring! Frustrating.

Page 51 - "'You are every bit as good as any other kids in this country, and don't believe anyone who tells you different. The Scout oath is not a bad code to live by.'"

I'd never heard the oath before. "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country. To obey the Scout law. To help other people at all times. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight." Seifert really was just trying to be a positive influence in these kids' lives. Herman Volz was another fantastic character at the school. But evil like DiMarco and the Black Witch ran terror into these kids' lives.

Page 64 - "Miss Stratton stared where they'd gone and said quietly, 'That tornado took the wrong woman.'"

When sweet Cora Frost is killed by the tornado, Miss Stratton and Odie played a special musical tribute at her funeral. Of course, Mrs. Brickman got angry with them and told them to always clear things like that with her first.

 

Page 79 - "I know it must seem ridiculous that I wept over a rat in much the same way I'd wept for Cora Frost. Love comes in so many forms, and pain is no different."

 

Faria the rat had kept Odie companion in "the quiet room" - an old solitary confinement prison cell. When the rat suddenly died, Odie was heartbroken. I'm pretty sure it was partly because of the cumulative effect of all the sadnesses he'd been experiencing.

Page 73 - "No death is insignificant, and I believe now that no death should be celebrated. But for a moment, just a moment after killing Vincent DiMarco, the man who'd brought only misery into my life and the lives of so many other kids, I felt a kind of elation."

In the next paragraph, Odie realizes that he has just killed a man. That realization changes his self-view and perspective. The impact hits him hard. But I'm so thankful that that monster of a person could no longer sexually assault kids or beat them for misbehaving. What an awful person to be working with kids! I really appreciate how the author wrote this scene.

Page 114 - "Albert and Mose bent hard to their paddles, and I sat in the middle with Emmy, brooding. It seemed to me that no matter what I did, it wasn't good enough for Albert."

I'm not sure why I tagged this. Perhaps because I've often been a "duffer" in a canoe. Or perhaps it was that I can relate to the frustration of trying really hard to do a good thing and being shot down (especially true at PRMS at the end of my career). In this scene, Odie had gotten some old clothes off a clothesline and clipped four dollar bills to the line in payment. He didn't mention to Albert that he'd talked to a little girl who'd seen him do it. 

Page 116/7 - "My earlier resentment had passed, as it always did. Lying on my blanket beside Albert, I was happy to have him for a brother, though I had no intention of telling him so. I didn't always understand him, and I knew that, more often than not, I was a bafflement to him as well, but the heart isn't the logical organ of the body, and I loved my brother deeply and fell asleep in the warmth of his company."

 

Brotherly love doesn't mean you always like that sibling! Sometimes it's the people we're closest to that we are also most frustrated with!

Page 126 - "Everything that's been done to us we carry forever. Most of us do our damnedest to hold on to the good and forget the rest. But somewhere in the vault of our hearts, in a place our brains can't or won't touch, the worst is stored, and the only sure key to it is in our dreams."

Odie is wondering if he should wake Mose from a bad dream. Found in a ditch as a toddler, with his tongue cut out and his dead mother beside him, Mose has become like a brother to Albert, Odie, and little Emmy Frost. Dreams and the subconscious fascinate me.

Page 141 - "I lay in the dark thinking about the bitterness inside the pig scarer and the sadness that was there, too, and I figured they were probably twins joined at the hip. I thought maybe it wasn't love that consumed him but a terrible sense of loss . . . Losing a child, that had to be akin to losing a good part of your heart."

 

I love how Odie is developing some empathy and a greater awareness of other people's pain. He was really tuned in to Billy Redsleeve at Lincoln School, too.

 

Page 165 - "There is a deeper hurt than anything sustained by the body, and it's the wounding of the soul. It's the feeling that you've been abandoned by everyone, even God."

Odie is sensitive to Emmy's crying and not really knowing why she feels so sad.

Page 252 - "Rubes? Is that how you think of the people who come here every night looking for something hopeful? Sid, the world is in great darkness, and for whatever reason, God gave me a light and made me a beacon. It's sacred what I do."

Sister Eve is another delightful character, though I was with Odie when he thought she was a charlatan. Sid brought both good and bad to the Sword of Gideon Healing Crusade.

Page 256 - ". . . Mose and I were putting all our effort into making distance, and I was breathing too hard for words. But I believe our silence was also because, once again, we were grieving loss. It was a feeling that should have been familiar to us by then, but does anyone ever get used to having their heart broken?"

So poignant! Krueger is a fantastic author. This is after Sid leaked the story of Albert surviving the snake bite and the Brickmans showed up to take Emmy. The four "vagabonds" made their escape.

Page 275 - "Its firm white flesh came easily off the bone and tasted far better than any catfish I'd ever eaten. I didn't understand until much later that I'd landed a walleye, a prized catch in Minnesota."

Yes! Our state fish, the walleye. Now I'm hungry for some fish.

Page 287 - "'Would you care to read a passage to end our day? It's what we do in our family. Despite what must seem like desperate circumstances, we don't believe the Lord has deserted us.'"

I love Mother Beal! She's MayBeth Scofield's grandma and she is an icon!

Page 296 - "At the harshness in my voice, she stepped away. But instead of leaving, she took my hand. 'When you don't have anything else to believe in, that's when you need to believe in miracles.'"

Maybeth is a wonderful friend and encourager to Odie.

Page 320 - "When darkness comes over your soul, it doesn't come in light shades; it descends with all the black of a moonless night."

 

I'm so glad that the joy of the LORD is my strength! I don't want to experience darkness overcoming my soul. 

 

Page 328 -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The opening of chapter 46 reminded me of someone I care about who's struggling with a deep loss and an "all-consuming nothing." 

 

Page 383 -  "A big island called Harriet lay west of the bridge, and above the island's public beach stood a great bathhouse with no bathers anywhere in sight. The Mississippi in those days had become a foul run of sewage, and although the city would eventually grow into a better steward of that precious resource, in 1932 not even the bravest of souls would dare bathe in the water."

I'm so glad we don't just dump our raw sewage into the river any more! I still wouldn't swim in the Mississippi near St. Paul, though. . . 

Page 391 - "The devastating spring floods would remain a constant, however, and in thirty years, the city of Saint Paul would decide, in the best interests of all its citizenry, to raze every building, while those whose lives had been shaped by the Flats could do nothing but stand by and weep as almost every remnant of their history vanished."

Now I want to read a non-fiction book about the river flats in St. Paul! So many books and so little time.

Page 418 - "I hadn't noticed this about Aunt Julia. I was twelve years old and had lived a long while in a rural area where high fashion was anything not made from a seed sack."

Odie's innocence about the women living at Aunt Julia's and the business conducted there . . . was sweet and embarrassing. I love that Julia had crazy good dress-making skills.

Page 426 - "This was too much. 'My mother named me,' I declared. She gazed at me silently. A buzzing began in my head like a swarm of flies going round and round, looking for a way out."

This part of the book, where Odie finally learns some truths about his life, was sad and happy. I love that his given name is Odysseus! How cool.

Page 442 - "My brother had been a hero to me his whole life and he died a hero's death."

The epilogue goes so perfectly with the rest of the book, following up on the lives of Odie and Julia, Albert, Mose, Emmy and Sister Eve, . . . what a great story!

Page 443 - "There are not many left who remember these things. But I believe if you tell a story, it's like sending a nightingale into the air with the hope that its song will never be forgotten."

Comparing stories to nightingales . . . lovely. I love stories. I wish I had recorded more of my mom's stories before she died.

Page 444 - "Our eyes perceive so dimly, and our brains are so easily confused. Far better, I believe, to be like children and open ourselves to every beautiful possibility, for there is nothing our hearts can imagine that is not so."

This made me think of Scriptures about trusting like a child. I love the character of Emmy and her love of all that is good and right.

Other notes:

• I love the author's note at the end! He is fascinating and I look forward to reading more of his stories.
• I was so worried that Albert was going to die from that snake bite!
• Until Odie ran into Jack in St. Paul, I was sure that the graves he had visited were those of his wife and daughter.
• Mose's character arc was great and I would have liked even more of his perspective.
• I had forgotten between reading the print book and listening to the audiobook that The Black Witch had murdered Albert's father. And she knew Julia and had been a prostitute in St. Louis as a teenager.