This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

“It’s a hard knock life,” Annie sings in the Depression-era musical of the same name, and there’s no doubt that children suffered greatly during this time period, as William Kent Krueger so movingly shows in his new novel, This Tender Land (published Sept. 3).   The cover alone will beg you to pick up the book, but the story with its resilient characters and their quest for bearable lives will pull you in.

Narrated by the elderly Odie O’Banion,  the story looks back on his 12th year in 1932 when he is living with his older brother Albert at the Lincoln Indian Training School in Minnesota.  They are the only two white children there, taken in when their father (and sole parent), is killed while delivering bootleg alcohol in the area. 

Conditions in the school are brutal with poor food, hard work, little recreation, and disciplinary measures often involving solitary confinement in a dark and dank room room.  It’s made worse by the school administrator, Mrs. Brickman, nicknamed “The Black Witch,” her husband who is complicit in all his wife’s meanness, and groundskeeper, Vincent DiMarco, who does unspeakable things to the children in the dead of night.

Fortunately, there are sympathetic people in these children’s lives, whose small kindnesses make big differences in how they feel about themselves and take on the world.  When tragedy strikes at the Lincoln School, four of these children band together and take a canoe to escape down the river Gilead with the intent of finding Albert’s and Odie’s aunt in St. Louis.  In addition to Albert and Odie, they include Mose, a mute Indian and close friend who communicates through sign language, and Emmie, the daughter of one of the school’s teachers.

Their travels take them through many challenges while giving readers an intimate view of the conditions of the Depression where people are losing their farms, drowning sorrows in drink, establishing Hoovervilles, helping out others, getting by through sharing music and song, and providing hope through the sometimes questionable miracles of tent revivals. 

Reminiscent of Huck Finn’s adventure on the Mississippi, the novel also weaves in many references to The Odyssey, creating a vast canvas where each character moves into the direction of his or her destiny.  The novel can be fully enjoyed for the adventure it is, but the threads of classic literature (quest stories and The Odyssey) provide a vibrant layer to enjoy.  While parts may seem to be too easily tied together,  this is an old-fashioned story that will appeal to many readers.

Krueger, who has a very fine and long-running mystery series set in Minnesota featuring Cork O’Connor, is also the author of the stand-alone novel, Ordinary Grace.

Favorite quotes:
“Open yourself to every possibility , for there is nothing your heart can imagine that is not so.”

“And, of course, there will be hope.  In the end, isn’t that what every good story is about?”

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Ibram X. Kendi has written a thoughtful, thought-provoking treatise on what antiracism looks like and how antiracism can achieve a socially just and equitable society—ideas that end up turning all our misconceptions and understandings upside down.  Racism is such a complex topic that it is difficult to conceive of where a person can even begin to deal with it, but Kendi does just that by building up his thesis in logical chapters that take on different aspects of racism.  He defines the ideas, gives examples, puts it into historical perspective, and contrasts the results of racism and antiracism ideas and policies.  His own personal journey to understanding is woven into the narrative, making it an engaging and accessible read. 

Kendi is the author of two other books, including The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965-1972 and Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award in 2016.   He is a professor at American University and the Founding Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center there as well as a columnist for The Atlantic.

This book is really a deep dive into the subject and draws on immense research, some of which came from his previous work.  In many ways, he shows that we are dealing with racism the wrong way around.  For instance, he asserts that "Racial inequity is a problem of bad policy, not bad people."

He says that the opposite of racist isn’t “not” racist, which means that we do nothing to solve the problems, but antiracist, which means that we are working for solutions against racism.  The aim of antiracism is to allow all to be fully human and equal, and to see people as individuals and not as representations of a particular race.  He writes about ethnic racism where hierarchies are created and people look down on other members of that racial group.  He talks about racism at the intersections of culture, gender, sexuality, behavior, class, and space.

I won’t say that it is an easy read—it isn’t, for a variety of reasons.  One of those is that you need to stop, re-read, and consider his ideas.  By the end, I had almost 100 highlighted sections that I wanted to refer to, showing the enormity of his ideas in what is actually a rather slim book for non-fiction (about 210 pages of text with another 100 pages of extensive notes for each chapter).  It is difficult to distill all these ideas into a coherent summary, partially because it is intimidating to try to understand racism and all its intersections and partially because it reveals your own racist ideas.  

This in an incredibly worthy read and perhaps the most important book of 2019, especially in light of many recent developments in America, including targeted mass shootings, racism aimed at members of Congress, racist criticism of an American city and its inhabitants, cruel treatment of brown children separated from their families, the reported rise in white supremacy, and so on.   America, read this book!  (It is published on Tuesday, August 13.)

One of the big quotes: “My research kept pointing me to the same answer.  The source of racist ideas was not ignorance and hate, but self-interest.” 

Advance copy from Netgalley