BookLife Review: This Tender Land, by William Kent Krueger
Mississippi river, canoeing, Great Depression, runaways, school for Native American children, Hooverville, religious revival troupe, Native American heritage and burial grounds, Minnesota, Missouri.
Acclaimed author William Kent Krueger writes beautiful stories set in the heartland of America. This Tender Land, introduced as a companion to Krueger’s Ordinary Grace, is the story of four orphans, self-named “the Vagabonds,” who embark on a river adventure down the Mississippi. They are runaways from horrific conditions and mistreatment they experienced at the Lincoln Indian School and its evil headmistress whom they name the Black Witch. Krueger sets his river odyssey adventure on the MIssissippi River in 1932 during the Great Depression.
Homer’s Odyssey and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are never far from mind. Krueger pays Huck and Twain due respect without too closely copying Huck’s classic story. The Vagabonds include its own Huck character in Odie (short for Odysseus (an obvious nod to Homer’s traveling hero), his pal Mose, a huge and burly youth of Indian descent (our Jim), as well as Odie’s older brother, Alfred, and young orphan Emmy, who the Black Witch is attempting to adopt. The tale is told by an older Odie, reflecting back on the adventure as a story to be shared with his grandchildren.
Suffice it to say that the conditions at the school and the death of an abusive staff member at Odie’s hands, make the four minors’ decision to embark on a precarious journey on the river from Minnesota to St. Louis seem like a reasonable decision. Krueger takes his time establishing the horrors, mistreatments, and corruption at the Lincoln Indian Training School in the early chapters. He crafts a viable escape plan by leveraging Alfred’s knowledge of the misdeeds of the headmistress's unscrupulous husband. The Vagabonds’ adventures, from the characters they encounter along the way, both friend and foe, to the obstacles they encounter, survive and overcome, comprise a riveting tale. The reader cannot help but root for their success as they attempt to remain a step and half a day ahead of their former captors.
The detours and obstacles are compelling B-stories unto themselves. The runaways venture onto a farm along the river to find overnight shelter from the rain and are apprehended by a miserable one-eyed farmer who locks them in a shed and compels the boys to work his orchard and farm. The farmer uses a gun aimed at little Emmy’s head to ensure her companions’ compliance. The circumstances surrounding their escape from the one-eyed farmer compound their need to avoid crossing paths with the law. A subsequent encounter with a revival camp and its players occupies them for several days, and stirs up differences of opinions amongst the Vagabonds about whom and what to believe and how to proceed. When the foursome meet a Native American and stumble upon a Native American burial ground, Mose runs headlong into the mysteries of his Native American heritage. He withdraws from his comrades who do not share his heritage and he must find peace and his way back to his friends as his emotional wounds heal. The group encounters a Hooverville encampment where Odie grows secretive and removed as he falls in love; he considers abandoning the Vagabonds for his love. Another pause in St. Paul provides refuge in another downtrodden community where the orphans find abundant kindness and help. Along the journey, the boys begin to understand Emmy’s gift of prescience and ability to foretell, and perhaps bend, future harm. Each of these discoveries tests the group’s bonds.
With almost a sleight of hand, Krueger crafts scenarios that cause the four to grow individually and together as they paddle their canoe down the Mississippi. Their journey is equal parts a physical journey and one of emotional and spiritual growth for each of them. From bank to bank, farm to town, river to city, the foursome soldier through difficulties and must repeatedly affirm their bond to one another. Krueger allows the journey to cradle the story’s character arcs and its emotional weight. The four orphans form a family of their own and learn the value of loyalty, friendship and their own version of family along the route.
The story gallups to a climax and a close somewhere between St. Paul and St. Louis. The twists at the end of the book, which I will not spoil with a reveal here, are somewhat sudden and stand a bit outside the tenor and the foregoing rhythm of the book, but the author assuages the suddenness of the ending of the journey with an epilogue that provides closure on the adult lives of the foursome. This Tender Land is a gripping adventure tale, a tasty slice of Depression historical fiction and a loving ode to the midwest heartland.