Monthly Archives: March 2021

I read this short novel in one sitting, captured by the distinctive first person narration of the unnamed main character. She’s raising chickens, four multi-colored, empty-headed creatures that occupy a great deal of her time and thoughts. In the first few chapters, I had to keep reminding myself that Brood is fiction, not memoir; that’s how real it felt. It’s also an indication of author’s skill. There are only a few additional characters: Percy, the narrator’s husband; her mother; Helen, her real estate agent friend; a few neighbors who stop by. There’s not much plot; it’s not the point of the novel.

We accompany the narrator on her chores taking care of the chickens through the frigid Minnesota winter, record-breaking heat in summer, and a tornado. She also cleans houses for her realtor friend. Through these activities we are part of her thoughts and a darker aspect of the novel begins to surface, an undercurrent of grief and loss. Caring for the chickens is more than just a mundane activity or hobby. Despite this undercurrent, the novel is filled with humor. One of the chickens–the alpha hen–is named Miss Hennepin County.  Gloria, another chicken, “stood distant watch over the garden like a member of the Secret Service, eyes, unblinking.” Rabbits in the garden are like “zaftig trolls.” A raccoon loads up garbage in an old briefcase and toddles off, as if to another job. At her mother’s house, a greying piece of meat is “resurrected with the life force of ketchup.”

It’s hard to believe that this is a debut novel; it’s filled with such astute observations. The narrator carries her grief alone: “Life is the ongoing effort to live.” Her tactless friend, Helen, “errs most often on the side of talking.” Her husband, Percy, waits, oblivious to her pain, to hear about an academic appointment that will mean a move to a town where they can’t take the chickens. What will happen to the chickens? The contrast between the chickens, who only know the present moment, and the narrator, who knows so much more, is the beating heart of this wonderful story.

A new book by Louise Erdrich is always an event. Years ago I read and enjoyed her first two novels, The Beet Queen and Love Medicine and I’ve been reading her books ever since. I just finished the latest one, The Night Watchman, on the same day that Deb Haaland was confirmed as the first Native American woman to head the U.S. Dept. of the Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I don’t normally write about anything political, but the timing was so fortuitous, and Erdrich’s book so wrenching about the relationship between Native American and the U.S. government, that I had to make the connection here.

The Night Watchman is based on letters that Erdrich’s grandfather wrote to 1953 to protest a proposed new policy regarding Native Americans. Ostensibly the policy will “emancipate” Indigenous people; actually it will terminate the federal government’s treaty obligations, opening up tribal lands for public acquisition. Erdrich has been writing about these issues for years, using fiction to illuminate the heart-wrenching stories of Native American lives. Her novels are often set in the tribal lands of the Turtle Mountain band of the Chippewas in North Dakota, the tribe she belongs to.

In The Night Watchman we follow several tribal members: Thomas, the night watchman and Council member who is moved to write to the Congressional sponsor of the legislation; Patrice, a young girl who travels to the Twin Cities to search for her sister; Wood Mountain, a young boxer who loves Patrice; and others whose voices enlarge on the picture of reservation life. As the Kirkus reviewer wrote, “In Erdrich’s hands, daily life on the reservation comes alive, the crushing poverty and lack of opportunity tempered by family cohesion and the wisdom of the elders.” That wisdom is embodied in Zhaanat, Patrice’s mother, whose unusual hands express her intuitive relationship with the natural world. Erdrich’s writing, as usual, combines quotidian detail with penetrating and rapturous descriptions of the characters’ relationships with their surrounding and traditions. It’s a potent combination. There were several times when I had to take a break from the story, especially during Patrice’s odyssey to the Twin Cities, a true descent into Hades. If you’ve read Erdrich’s other novels, you’ll enjoy this one; if you haven’t, The Night Watchman is a good place to start.

To go back to the beginning of this post, Heather Cox Richardson, author of the daily blog Letters from an American, wrote about Deb Haaland’s appointment the morning after. Since you’ll be reading this at a later date, it’s Richardson’s March 15th post. In case you’ve forgotten, Richardson gives a short summary of the ways we’ve betrayed the Native Americans: the land grabs, the “removals,” the efforts at forced assimilation through boarding schools, and the disdain for Indigenous culture. It’s all in Erdrich’s novels.

I’ve always believed that appreciating good art in any medium requires our effort. Good art doesn’t come to us–we go to it. The more we extend ourselves to understand what the writer (or artist or composer) intends, the more we can learn from it and the more it will enrich our lives. Of course, that begs the question–what is good writing? How do we know what writing is worth our close attention? Not all writing is good and, of course, “good” is a subjective term. There were even times when Shakespeare was considered just a middling playwright. And maybe, for practical purposes, “good” writing is just what we enjoy whether it’s critically acclaimed or not.

And speaking of critics, I like what Vivian Gornick said in a recent interview with Hannah Gold from The Nation: “I think it was Baudelaire who was the first literary person that I know of to describe criticism as autobiography. The first time I ever saw that sentence I understood how true it was. In other words, what any writer does is essentially give the reader a view of how the writer sees the world…the idea that the critic is omniscient, is committing in ironclad terms the right and the wrong, the good and the bad, as if coming from above, is ridiculous. It’s just not true.” Gornick always has interesting things to say about literature and I’ve read many of her books, mostly essays about literature, life (hers), and feminism.

I recently came across an article on this topic in The Guardian titled Pretentious, impenetrable, hard work…better? Why we need difficult books by Lara Feigel. You may enjoy reading it and thinking about the issues it raises in terms of your own reading. I’ve loved reading the challenging novels that reward close attention, like Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, but like a dieter, I enjoy cheating with a thriller, fantasy epic, or mystery. In the same way, I love going to the Frick Museum to feed my soul with those remarkable works of art, but I also enjoy the costume exhibits at the Metropolitan. The pleasures of reading are many and can be found in many places and many genres. Librarians have a saying, “Never apologize for your reading tastes.” My goal with this blog is to provide variety so everyone finds something they enjoy, but it’s also to write about the harder stuff, the stuff that makes great art. I recently spent two years reading Proust with a group in New York. Did I love every word? No, but it was a rewarding experience to spend time with a writer who understands the human heart so thoroughly and with other people who appreciated exactly this quality in his writing. 

The book cover at the top of this post is Lynne Sharon Schwartz’s short memoir Ruined By Reading: A Life in Books , a delightful book about the power of reading in her life. It turns out many readers have the same kinds of experiences with books; Schwartz just knows how to put those experiences into words. 

 I found Cemetery Road in the tenant library in the basement of our apartment building, and was intrigued by the jacket blurb which promised a classic southern noir novel filled with family secrets and good old boys. The setting is Bienville, Mississippi, a town on the river bluffs that has had its share of economic ups and downs. Marshall McEwan, a native son who left Bienville to become a political journalist in D.C., has returned to see his dying father, the editor of the town newspaper. McEwan left at age eighteen in the sad aftermath of his older brother’s accidental death.

Once again Bienville is down on its economic heels, but a Chinese company is in negotiation to build a large paper mill. It’s a miracle that no one wants to derail, most of all the Poker Club, a group of corrupt businessmen and politicians who’ve run the town for generations.

The Chinese are ready to commit but a local amateur archaeologist has found remains of a very old Native American settlement on the grounds of the factory site. If there are bones among his findings, the state will take over to investigate. The Chinese won’t wait; the archaeologist is found dead. Murder? The Poker Club does its best to brand it an accident. With the aid of Denny, a teen with a passion for drones, McEwan goes to work trying to prove that the Poker Club is behind the murder. He’s also trying to win back Jet, his first love, and make peace with his father.

There are lots of back stories here–old family tragedies, war stories from Vietnam and Iraq–all very well told–which ramp up our investment in the characters. As the novel goes on, nasty motivations are laid bare and there’s more violence. Will McEwan be able to expose the corruption of the Poker Club buddies? Will he win back Jet? Will he take over the newspaper and stay in Bienville? No spoilers here.  A little over-the-top but very entertaining.

For fans of southern noir, try also Attica Locke. I’ve enjoyed Heaven My Home; The Cutting Season; and Bluebird, Bluebird.