Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson

Fourth of July Creek, Smith Henderson. Toronto: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014. e book, 390 pps.

https://www.smith-henderson.com/

https://twitter.com/smith_henderson


N.B. This novel has cuss words in it and depicts some sex and quite a bit of violence. If you object to that, then don't read Fourth of July Creek. Please read the book first before you consider letting your teens read it. Thanks.


     Fourth of July Creek is a fine novel. Set mainly in Montana-- with some other places thrown in-- Smith Henderson evokes the wilderness and those who live there in order to get away from the troubles of society. But even so, dysfunction has a way of following. 

     Social workers can also have their share of the stuff that takes the fun out of living. Pete Snow is an alcoholic. Lots of folks know that about him. He is not the only alcoholic caught up in the dramas of the backwoods, but he is the one we know the most about. There is also a drunken judge and some boozy friends. And an ex-wife gone party bananas in Austin Texas along with a teen-aged daughter.

     Pete Snow endeavors to do his job. He checks up on kids and their families. He takes kids away when he must. He does alright with some of those kids and fails drastically with others. He meets up with an irate father by the name of Jeremiah Pearl. Mr. Pearl doesn't cotton to him much at first. He always has his loaded shot gun. 

     Mr. Pearl is a christian of the end-times variety, waiting for money to fail and the antichrist to rise up from the dead and take over America. His apocalyptic thinking is of the extreme sort, very much unlike that of some of my fundamentalist christian buddies who attend church on Sundays and who may at times greet each other with the word "Maranatha" or visibly shake their heads at the evening news.

     Pete Snow has a life that is falling apart when he hears some news from Texas and must take off immediately for Austin. I'm not going to tell you any more of it. Read the book.

sapphoq reviews says: Smith Henderson did an excellent job with Fourth of July Creek, his first novel. The characters were vivid. The plot moved along nicely. I was transported into the story itself. A most excellent book and highly recommended.

Pilgrim's Wilderness by Tom Kizzia

Pilgrim'sWilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier, Tom Kizzia. New York: Crown Publishers/ Random House, Inc., 2013. e-book, 285 pps.

     Robert Hale was a sick dude. To look at him and his large family, the casual observer might have concentrated on the Christian message that he was presenting and the apparent wholesomeness of his lifestyle. 

     But appearances can be deceiving. Behind close doors, his wife and children suffered. "Papa Pilgrim" was quick with the insults and quick with the belt. There was physical abuse to be sure. And incest. Some extreme drinking on the part of "Papa." The expectation that his wife and his children would jump whenever he ordered them around. His brood did exactly as instructed or consequences would be dire.

       The family had relocated to Alaska after bits of trouble in other places. They lived on a mountain outside of McCarthy. At first the people of McCarthy welcomed the Pilgrim family. They sang and played musical instruments. That changed.

sapphoq reviews says: Robert Hale was a fundamentalist Christian with a nasty twist. He was his own church. He was also mean. Pilgrim's Wilderness lays out the story of the Hale family against the backdrop of the history of McCarthy, Alaska. Another fundamentalist Christian family living in the Alaska frontier [whose dad was not mean and the center of his own cult] provided rescue. The children were able to get out. They did not abandon their Christian faith. They did come to understand that the actions of their "Papa" were not Christ-like. I wish every one of them happiness and peace.
     For those adults who are interested in the study of familial religious cults and dysfunctional families as well as for those who like bits of Alaskan history with their biographies, highly recommended.

I'm Down by Mishna Wolff

I'm Down: A Memoir, Mishna Wolff.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2009.  e-book, 208 pps.

     Mishna and her younger sister are white.  Their divorced parents are white.  But their dad thinks he is black.  He is so enamored of Black Culture that he lives in a black neighborhood and raises his children as if they were also black.  The two sisters attend a summer recreational program with not much recreation in it.  Mishna learns how to cap.  She despairs of her dad's increasingly bizarre girlfriends and eventually is forced to retreat to her mother's home in an affluent [predominantly] white neighborhood.  She discovers that a few of her white rich girl classmates are pretty mixed up in spite of their very different upbringing.

sapphoq reviews says:  Mishna Wolff has written a fine memoir of her unique upbringing.  Her memories are treated with both seriousness and humor.  I could picture her as a younger in my mind.  Highly recommended as an anecdotal exploration of what it means to be the Other in the United States of America.