Native Idenity, Boarding Schools, and Historical Damage

 

 

 

Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools

To be published April 22, 2025

By Mary Annette Pember

Penguin Random House, 304 pages.

★★★

 

Native Americans have been called America’s “forgotten minority.” Discussions of discrimination and racism often focus on other groups, yet if one looks at negative social data (poverty, poor housing, substance abuse, poor health, infant death, unemployment, etc.) indigenous Americans are at the bottom of most of them. Mary Annette Pember, an Ojibwe*, argues this is by design, not an unfortunate twist of history.

 

Many books have been written about white land grabs, Indian wars, and broken treaties, but Pember cuts to the quick by noting that indigenous history is where the Great Commission–the command for Christians to evangelize the globe–meets the Great Chain of Being, a biological taxonomy that ranks living things from simple to complex. At the height of the eugenics movement, the latter view extended the rankings to humankind. The eugenics movement merely reiterated older ideals. When the U.S. Constitution was approved, enslaved Africans were counted as 3/5^th of a person; Indians were not counted at all.

 

Pember’s book is at once a sweeping historical account, a family history, and a personal memoir. There is an extensive historiography of Native American history, but Pember adds detail to the lesser discussed tale of Indian boarding schools, a topic that often goes no deeper than mentions of the Carlisle Indian School to give context for the prowess of famed athlete Jim Thorpe during the early 20^th century. Pember notes that by the 1920s, a startling 76 percent of Indian children were sent to boarding schools.  “Sent” is the operative word, as many of them were judicial and legislative kidnappings undertaken to “assimilate” indigenous children into mainstream society. That meant  bans of native languages, dress, customs, and rituals.

 

This is a personal issue for Pember, whose mother Bernice attended St. Mary’s Catholic Indian School in Odanah, Wisconsin, to the chagrin of her mother Cece, an early Ojibwe activist. In many ways Bernice bought into assimilation; she adopted a prim image as if to prove wrong a nun who called Indians “dirty.” Pember, however, presents boarding schools in a Dickensian light, institutions marked by body-numbing hard work, food deprivation, authoritarian regimentation, and corporal punishment. Her descriptions call to mind Irish laundries for unwed mothers, and the treatment of Māori in New Zealand and Aborigines in Australia. To cite just one impact of poor conditions, in 1925, 87 out every 100,000 individuals in the United States contracted TB; among indigenous peoples the level was nearly seven times higher.

 

What Bernice missed–as did Pember in her youth–was deep immersion in Ojibwe language and culture. The band to which Pember belongs lives in northern Wisconsin along the shores of Lake Superior. Much of their land and that of some Sioux and Ho–Chunk was grafted away by lumber interests in 1837,  but roughly 125,000 acres plus the right to conduct rituals on Madeline Island were guaranteed by an 1854 treaty. It is today land belonging to the Medicine River reservation**.

 

Pember traces a legacy of harm and cultural damage done by boarding schools. It is a powerful story, though it must be said that the book occasionally stumbles by trying to do too much. Particularly noticeable are its tonal shifts. Pember is didactic when reviewing history, personal in discussing her family saga, and righteously angry at some of her own experiences. Because she often crams history and memoir into the same chapters, it is easy to get lost chronologically and thematically. Chapter 2, for instance, begins with an incident in Bernice’s life, jumps back to Pope Nicholas V (1447-55) and wends its way forward, cuts away to Ojibwe culture, and returns to Bernice. Most of the material on boarding schools is found in chapters 5-8 of the book’s 10 chapters and even then, Pember shifts between broader and personal history.  Although it was published before Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) became President Obama’s Secretary of the Interior, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous History of the United States (2014) is an easier read for anyone looking for a survey of Native American history. Then again, Dunbar-Ortiz devotes but six pages to boarding schools.

 

I recommend Medicine River, but take your time.

 

Rob Weir

 

 

*Ojibwe references an Algonquian dialect. Tribal members are properly called Anishinaabe, meaning “True People,” though many whites called them Chippewa.

 

** In a telltale etymological shift, white French traders called the stream emptying into Lake Superior, “Bad River.”

 

 

Saturday Night: Why Was This Film Ignored?

 

 

 

Saturday Night (2024)

Directed by Jason Reitman

Sony Pictures Releasing, 109 minutes, R (language, sexuality, drug use)

★★★★

 

An odd thing happened as Saturday Night Live prepared for its 50^th anniversary this year. A pretty decent film was made to pay homage to its first broadcast on October 11, 1975, or perhaps more accurately, the miracle that it happened at all. The film won numerous awards at film festivals, was reviewed favorably by 75% of the critics who previewed it, and assembled a convincing ensemble of actors to step into the now-legendary shoes of producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle), Dan Aykroyd (Dylan O’Brien), John Belushi (Matt Wood), Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith), Jane Curtin (Kim Matula), Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris), Laraine Newman (Emily Fairn), Michael O’Donohue (Tommy Dewey), and Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt). Then the nearly $30 million film opened in theaters and tanked! It returned less than $10 million at the box office, went to video, and disappeared amidst some very harsh reviews.

 

It's back and that’s a good thing. It has been labelled a biography-comedy-drama. As readers know, I’m often critical of neither fish-nor-fowl hybrids, but Saturday Night is a very entertaining movie. Please note that it’s decidedly not a documentary. Co-writer and director Jason Reitman mixed things that happened, numerous situations that did not, and quite a few that are mongrelized versions of truth, near-truth, and complete fiction. In my estimation, Reitman did this to draw in viewers so they would not spend 109 minutes fixated on whether or not the actors looked or acted like the real McCoys. They mostly do, but Reitman’s aim was to capture the vibe of opening night chaos. From what I am able to determine, NBC executive Dick Ebersole (Cooper Hoffman) actually believed the show was unready for prime time and came close to pulling the plug. Reitman enhanced the pandemonium through exaggeration, well-placed slapstick, and obstacles from people who weren’t actually there (like Milton Berle). Did TV/theatre executive Dave Tebet (Willem Dafoe) play good cop/bad cop on the set? Maybe. Was Michaels’ wife Rosie Shuster (Rachel Sennott) really enamored with Aykroyd’s virility? Doubtful. Did Belushi come to opening night having not signed his contract? Yep.

 

What we know Reitman got right was that the original cast was often fueled by cocaine and lesser drugs, that Aykroyd, Belushi, and Chase brought petulance and enormous egos with them, that Morris–a Julliard trained singer­–was often frustrated by his roles and the perceived tokenism of being the only black cast member, and that the female cast members knew testosterone poisoning when they saw it. All except Radner originally saw the gig as just a paycheck. (Radner was too full of energy and matched Belushi’s maniacal spontaneity with her own.) As we later learned, more guest hosts liked the idea of being on SNL better than the actual experience. In the film, George Carlin (Matthew Rhys) presaged those who didn’t like the very idea of winging things in sketches. Others, such as Billy Preston (Jon Batiste), simply rolled with the punches.

 

In the past 50 years SNL has changed casts countless times, sometimes hitting the jackpot (Billy Crystal, Dana Carney, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Jimmy Fallon, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Dennis Miller, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Any Poehler, Joe Piscopo, Cecily Strong), duds (Jim Belushi, Ellen Cleghorne, Anthony Michael, Horatio Sanz, the entire cast of 1995), and­–I await your wrath–those whose allure eludes me (Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, Bobby Moynihan, Molly Shannon). And let’s give as shout out to brilliant occasional actors such as Don Novello, whose Father Guido Sarducci sketches remain hysterical. If you want more, Rolling Stone has its own ratings of all 145 actors who have appeared on SNL.

 

SNL has become part of American culture, though after watching Saturday Night you might wonder how in the blazes it made it out of year one. To take a potshot at a myth, it’s just not true that nothing like SNL had ever hit the airwaves. What was the Carol Burnet Show, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and dozens of British comedies if not SNL precursors? Old  Laugh-In episodes look pretty goofy from our current POV, but it’s the culture that has changed, not the zany intent of comedians. Nearly all forms of comedy are by nature subversive. All that constrains comics is how far they can go before censors, cops, and zealots shut them down.

 

Rob Weir

 

MLB Central Time

 

 

 

It’s been a while since MLB Central teams have generated much excitement. The Cubs won the World Series in 2016 and the Royals in 2015, but the Cubs might have been an outlier. Could 2025 see some Central Division team go deep in the postseason? I rather doubt it.

 

AL Central

 

1. Detroit Tigers. KC is the safer pick, but I’m playing a hunch with Detroit. Unlike the Tigers of the 1980s/90s, they won’t slug their way to a title. Aside from (Riley) Greene, the hope that Keith will develop fast, and the frustrating Torres coming over from New York, Detroit’s lineup seems a bit thin. But they might not need to score in bunches with a staff anchored Skubal, Mize, Flaherty (good pickup), and hot prospect Jobe. I’m going with the great-pitching-wins theory.

 

2. Kansas City Royals. They have the best hitting in the Central: Witt, Renfroe, Pasquantino, India, Perez… The pitching is also decent: Lugo, Ragan, Wacha, Lorenzen. They also have two big question marks in the outfield and one in the closer role. They are good enough to win if the Tigers falter.

 

3. Minnesota Twins. A team that constantly disappoints. It’s a collection of hitters with one star, Correa, and others that are merely okay. That list includes Buxton, who has a terrific glove but overall is one of the most overhyped players in MLB. Lopez is a good pitcher and (Joe) Ryan occasionally turns in a nice performance, but there’s a reason why the Twins were 21^st in ERA last year.

 

4. Cleveland Guardians. Vogt is a smart young skipper and he’ll need to be to prevent Cleveland from taking a big step backward this year. It’s hard to see a repeat of last year’s 92-win season with a lineup whose only pop is Ramirez, now that (Josh) Naylor is in Phoenix–unless they think 42 year-old Santana will revert to his 2019 self. Kwan gets on base, but who else now that Gimenez is a Blue Jay? Lots of young pitchers in the pipeline but aside from Lively, no projected starter won more than 8 games last year.

 

5. Chicago White Sox. Call it a successful year it the ChiSox lose only 100 games. They have a strong minor league system but a lot of future talent will need to mature overnight to prevent a repeat of last year’s nightmare 121-loss season. What does it tell you when Benintendi led the team in two offensive categories and their best pitcher is now in a Red Sox uniform? Expect more roster turnover than wins.

 

 

 

NL Central:

 

1. Milwaukee Brewers: The only decent team in the Central, which is far from saying the Brew Crew is great. They will get production out of Hoskins, Chourio, Contreras, and Yelich. Peralta, Cortes, and Woodruff are decent if the latter has put his injuries behind him. Quintana will soak up innings. The aptly named Close is one of the best relievers in baseball.

2. Pittsburgh Pirates are another hunch team. Skenes is one of the best pitchers in baseball, Chandler and (Jared) Jones are highly regarded rookies, and Keller has yet to find his groove. If and two of the three clikc, the Bucs can make some noise. If they have to lean on Heaney, the Pirates will head for Davy Jones Locker. Reynolds is a pro hitter; (Oneail) Cruz, Kiner-Falefa, and Bart are decent players, and McCutcheon and Pham are seasoned vets. Finishing above .500 would be a major step forward. They may have to jettison Yankee castoffs in the bullpen to get there.

 

3. Chicago Cubs look like a reverse copy of the Pirates. The Cubs will hit with Happ, Hoerner, Suzuki, Swanson, (Justin) Turner, and newly acquired Tucker in the lineup. How far they go will depend on how well they pitch. Taillon seems to have found a home on the North Side. If Boyd can find the same level of comfort and touted rookie Horton becomes half the pitcher Skenes is, the Cubs could pass the Bucs and possibly grab a Wild Card. Pressly is an excellent closer.

 

4. Cincinnati Reds are the team I’m least certain of in all of baseball. On one hand, they have  a strong farm system; on the other, three youngsters they hoped would be starting pitchers are on the IL. This makes (Hunter) Greene or (Nick) Martinez the de facto ace and neither is a sure thing, nor is Singer a surefire #3. Luckily, in Stephenson and Trivino they have excellent catchers. De La Cruz is as fast as greased lightning but his bat cooled last year. Lux coming over from LA should help, as will Hays (from Baltimore) when he gets off the IL. Right now, the #2 bat is Candelario and that’s not ideal. The closer? Who knows? The wild card is the Francona factor. He excels in tough situations and his teams are always entertaining.

 

5. St. Louis Cardinals. They sure went from contenders to pretenders in a hurry. They are the opposite of what you’d think by looking at them on paper. They have proven pitchers like (Sonny) Gray, Mikolas, Matz, and closer Helsley yet were 16^th in ERA last year. The lineup doesn’t seem very strong once one gets past the scrappy Donovan, (Willson) Contreras, and disgruntled (and allegedly declining) Arenado, yet were 8^th in batting average. Most, including me, see them as repeating 2024’s 5^th place finish, yet… if they rebounded and were in contention, I’d be only mildly surprised. That could happen if a few pitchers (Mathews and Hence) make the jump from the minors to the majors.

 

Rob Weir

Big Chief: All is Not Well on the Reservation

 

 

 

Big Chief  (Coming April 2025)

By Jon Hickey

Simon and Schuster, 320 pages.

★★★★

 

Big Chief is about Native Americans, though the title refers to a fortress-like Ford Super-Duty F-350 truck designed to impress and intimidate. Jon Hickey's novel takes place on the Passage Rouge reservation in Wisconsin, which sports a contentious community of Anishinaabe (Chippewa) people. It's Thanksgiving time and an election for tribal chief looms.

 

Non-native peoples often valorize all things Native American. Hickey–like writers such as Sherman Alexie, Louise Erdrich, Tommy Orange, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Morgan Talty–reminds us that homegrown discontent runs rampant in indigenous communities. Mack Beck, who drives Big Chief, is the incumbent Passage Rouge chief but faces stiff opposition from Gloria Hawkins. His advisor, 30-year-old Mitch Caddo, is the book’s centerpiece. Mitch is native and the youngest operations director in tribal history, yet an outsider. His mother grew up in Old Village, the original Passage Rouge Settlement, but his white father’s shortcomings led mother and son to flee to Milwaukee. Upon her death Mitch was raised by grandparents before Joe and Maureen Beck, who are white,  brought him back to Passage Rouge and provided him opportunities. 

 

The Becks live on a nicer property than most of their Native neighbors, and raised Mack–and later, Mitch–alongside their biological daughter Layla. Joe knows tribal history and rituals better than most Anishinaabeg, passes on his knowledge, and has done numerous good things for the reservation. For Mitch that’s a mixed blessing. He loves Joe and Maureen, but his mixed blood status, polished manners, Ivy League education, years off the reservation, and law degree make him an outlier.

 

In many ways, Mitchell, Gloria, and Joe are living embodiments of central dilemmas in the novel. Who is a native? If it's solely a matter of blood, how much? Being “red” is up for grabs in Passage Rouge, a place filled with HUD  houses, rivalries, an increasingly militarized tribal police force, and a casino that attracts outsiders when it's not being used as makeshift community center. Mack fancies himself a reformer, but has fallen into some negative old-school ways. Mitch can’t get Mack to realize that Gloria is a serious candidate and that he can’t count on winning by handing out allotment checks, cigarettes, and selective favors or getting heavy-handed when needed. Mitch holds progressive views, but these often clash with running Mack’s campaign. How hard can he push Mack if he wants to remain a political player?  

 

You might wonder why anyone would want to be a player at Passage Rouge. Its politics are like a casino game rigged so that no one wins. You name it and there's a faction for it on the reservation: modernizers, an old boys network, do-gooders, grafters, those who wish to revive old tribal customs, city Indians, reservation Indians…. Not to mention romantic rivalries, some of which revolve around the independent and opinionated Layla. She has moved on from her marriage to Chief of Police Bobby Lone Eagle, who remains territorial and acts like Little Big Man. The reservation is so riven that many speak openly of weaponizing tactics of un-enrolling those who don’t measure up to their particular definition of “Indian” and of exiling non-natives.

 

About the only thing resembling consensus is that few on the reservation trust the government–though many tout their military service and rely upon those allotment checks–and don't want the Department of Justice poking into tribal matters. In such a volatile moment of stress, all that's needed is for someone to light a fuse. Protests, kidnapping, a fatal accident, threats, and a shooting raise different questions about what is meant by Indian blood.

 

Hickey's novel is multilayered. It grapples with very serious identity issues, yet is also shot through with humor. It is about justice in a place in which injustices of all sorts swirl about. It's a romance, but not a conventional one, a murder mystery, and a heroic tale filled with flawed and questionable candidates for said status.

 

One might say that Hickey overdoes rushing from crisis-to-crisis scenarios, but he keeps the pace moving, and presents modern Anishinaabeg life stripped of stereotypes. This is Hickey's first novel and if Big Chief is any indication, the first of many fine books to come.

 

Rob Weir

 

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book.

 

 

 

 

Here One Moment a Haunting Novel

 

 

 

 

Here One Moment (2024)

By Liane Moriarty

Crown, 495 pages.

★★★★★

 

Which of these would creep you out more, someone jumping out to scare you or someone who walked down an aisle telling you and everyone else the age at which they will die and how it will happen? I’m solidly in the second camp; I don’t want  to know! I’m also here to tell you that if you are not already familiar with novelist Liane Moriarty, you should fix that.

 

Moriarty really knows how to spin a yarn. Plus, if you’re sick of novels about rich people, know that Moriarty generally favors prosaic folks. Speaking for myself, I’m really bored with novels about privileged 30s-something Manhattanites whining about their First World problems. If you’re with me, no worries, mate; Moriarty is an Aussie. But let’s return to my opening.

 

Passengers are in the air for a short flight from Hobart, Tasmania to Sydney. Flight attendant Allegra loves her job, but she isn’t having a great day. One member of the crew is arrogant, another is a lazy slacker, and Allegra has just rushed to the loo to clean the vomit a passenger has deposited on her uniform. She doesn’t have a spare and no one is taking up the slack. In other words, there’s no one readily available to keep order when a woman so nondescript that few can remember what she looks like when they reach Sydney stands up from her aisle seat as if she’s frozen in place.

 

Passengers ask her if she’s okay but she says nothing until she begins to walk around the plane delivering a message. She looks at each passenger and says, “I expect” and proclaims the age at which they will shuffle off this mortal coil and their cause of death. You’d probably feel okay about things if she tells you that you will die at age 95 from a cardiac arrest. But what if you’re Leo and she tells you that you will pass at 43 from a workplace accident and you’re just about to turn 43? What if you’re a young mom like Paula who is told she will die at 84? You might be fine with that and perhaps delirious to consider that your daughter Willow will live to 103. But when told that four-year-old Timothy will drown at age seven, Paula goes ballistic and screams, “How can you say that to a mother?”

 

Okay, that’s seriously creepy isn’t it? When the zoned out soothsayer is challenged she calmly replies, “Fate won’t be fought.” So here are a few questions? Do you believe in clairvoyance? Most people reflexively say no. But if you were Leo or Paula, how much consolation would you take from those who tell you that the prognosticator is nuts and that clairvoyance is fake? Could you walk off the plane and live your life as if you never heard the forecast? How about the newlyweds told that the wife’s death will come in four years via domestic violence? Such is the setup for a more serious look at free will versus determinism, though Moriarty doesn’t expect us to enroll in a philosophy class and makes no statement more complicated than. “If free will doesn’t exist… all your decisions and actions are inevitable….”

 

Here One Moment would be a heck of a book if Moriarty ended the book at the Sydney airport, but Moriarty ups the ante. Imagine the potential panic when several of the more immediate predictions come true. Coincidence or an oracle? Moriarty follows how those on the plane adjust their lives or don’t based upon where they come down on the free will versus determinism question. For most, it’s in the back of their minds even if they profess not to believe in predictions. Moriarty also reveals the identity of the erstwhile Sibyl, her backstory, how she feels about what she did, and how she handles notoriety.

 

Don’t be put off by the book’s 495-page length. Many of those pages are just a few lines. It’s a proverbial page turner that you will zip through. And, yes, I will take responsibility if you go on a Liane Moriarty kick after reading Here One Moment.

 

Rob Weir 

Baseball on the East Coast

 

Most of my readers are on the East Coast, so I thought I’d do a 2025 baseball preview by regions this year.

 

Let me start with this: The days of the American League fearing the Best of the East are questionable these days. If you are an overall sports fan, I suspect that the women’s NCAA championship and the NBA (in that order) will be more exciting than spring baseball. I don’t see a dominant team racing ahead of the pack. Here are my picks, with the codicil that that, on paper, three teams have a decent chance in the AL East.

 

1.  Boston Red Sox. They can win because of starting pitching headed by Crochet,  Buehler, and Bello. Duran looks to be a budding star, they stole a nice catcher (Narvaez) from the Yankees, and Bregman is likely to lead them in all offensive categories. They are young, speedy, and hungry.

 

            They could lose because Bello might be a fluke, Hendriks flunks as closer, Giolito is damaged goods, and neither Houck nor Crawford are legit. They could also lose because Casas is a lazy waste and it was a bad idea to make Devers angry. They could lose if the kids are not alright and if the bullpen explodes like the bovines busting out of Pamplona.

 

2. Baltimore Orioles. Normally they’d be the top pick but losing Corbin for 41 year-old Morton is a bad exchange, Henderson is on the IL, and heaven help them if the un-coachable Gary Sanchez catches more than a handful of games. Plucking O’Neill from the Red Sox was a good move. They have a good lineup, but not necessarily a fearful one. They could win with a good tailwind.

 

3. Toronto Blue Jays. I’m almost embarrassed to rank them this high as few teams in baseball disappoint as badly as the Jays. How can a team with Gausman, Berios, and Manoah rank 22^nd in ERA? At age 41, Scherzer should shut it down and wait for the Hall of Fame to call. Will Bichette, Varsho, or Springer produce? If not, the fabulous Guerrero will be wearing a different uniform next year.

 

4. New York Yankees. Any team that starts the year by losing MLB’s best pitcher (Cole) for the season and has Stroman as their #3 starter, the maddeningly inconsistent Rodon as # 1 is clearly in trouble. This core is old, slow, and poorly conditioned. Fried was a good signing but in short, the Yankees are a mess.

 

5. Tampa Bay Rays. They are a bigger mess still, though it’s not inconceivable that their solid pitching (9^th in ERA) could vault them over the Yankees. Except they were 27^th in batting and 29^th in runs scored. Other than (Brandon) Lowe I can’t think of any hitter you’d want from the Rays. To add insult to injury, they are homeless after a hurricane blew the top off of the Trop. They will play home games in the Yankees 11,000-seat minor league park and probably won’t fill it. Every year I say this: Move the Jays to Montreal; summer baseball in Florida is a flop.

 

 

National League East

 

 

 

Based on signing Juan Soto, the Mets are the sexy pick. I say the Mets might have trouble grabbing a Wild Card.

 

1. Philadelphia Phillies. They are clearly the strongest team in the East and are seeking redemption for being dumped in the first round of the playoffs. They have Harper, (Trea) Turner, Schwarber, Realmuto, Bohm, and Marsh to mash, and Wheeler, Nola, and Saurez to head the staff.

 

            They could lose if they don’t find a top closer or if Nola pulls another disappearing act, or if the…

 

2. Atlanta Braves knock them off. If Acuna has put his injuries and problems behind him, that’s a huge plus to go with Olson, Albies, Ozuna, and Profar. Other than Sale you might not be familiar with Braves pitching and losing Fried to the Yankees will hurt, but every year they seem to come up with great arms. That’s why they are #1 in MLB in ERA. Iglesias might be the most underrated closer in the game. Superior pitching is what takes you deep in the offseason. That’s why I’m not sold on the…

 

3. New York Mets. Soto, Alonso, Lindor, Nimmo, and company will produce lots of runs, but Holmes as a starter? No!  Montas? His initials should be IL. Diaz is a heart attack closer. This leaves the very serviceable Peterson and Manea to carry the pitching staff. Each is good, but do you fear them? If the Mets have any catching, it hasn’t announced itself yet.

 

4-5. Miami Marlins and Washington Nationals. Flip the order anyway you wish. The Nats were 23^rd in ERA last year and the Fish were 29^th. Miami was 14^th in average but 27^th in runs scored. Washington was 15^th in average and 25^th in runs. You probably only know 2-3 players from either roster. I tossed a coin and it came up with the Nationals finishing 4^th. I’m going with that  out of fear a second toss would come up Miami. But if Alcantara comes back from injury it could go that way. And who cares?

 

 

March 2025: Laura Stewart, Claire Keegan, Archer Mayor, Rick Lenz, Jamie Harrison

 

Time for some more book clean outs. I’m beginning to think of these as a regular thing.

 

 

 

Laura Stewart is a self-proclaimed fan of Agatha Christie. Her novel Deer Lodge: Death at the Hunting Lodge (Bloodhound Books, 2024, 319 pages) deliberately echoes both a Christie title and falls into the cozy mystery category that Christie practically invented. Stewart’s tale is set in a Scottish village around the holiday of Beltane (May Day) and involves subplots of archaeology, Tarot cards, Celtic mythology, a hillside mansion, numerous eccentrics, several murders, and enough red herrings to hold a fish fry. This is # 3 in Stewart’s Amelia Adams series, each a standalone not in need of previous reading. A group of younger diggers wants to excavate near an old abbey on a farm owned by a very odd man in hope of unearthing a Pictish site. Adams is our amateur sleuth who inherits Stone Manor, but local murders aren’t very good for the Beltane tourist trade. Moira, a white witch, isn’t dissuaded but she and everyone else is a suspect, except maybe Gideon a whiny young man milking a minor injury as if his head were cut off. Stewart deftly balances history, prehistory, the occult, creepy atmosphere, and fine pacing. ★★★★

 

 

 

Irish writer Claire Keegan excels at novellas filled with small details that define place and time. In Small Things Like These  (Grove Press, 2021, 116 pages), Bill Furlong grew up in a wee village somewhere near Waterford in the Republic of Ireland. His mother was a widow pregnant with him, and a servant in the home of Mrs. Wilson a relatively well-to-do widow in her own right. The Furlongs are Catholic, but Mrs. Wilson is a Protestant. Furlough was literally spat upon as a lad because his father was unknown and he lived with a Protestant. He is now married to Eileen, has five daughters, and owns a coal business. Bill is liked by most, is considered kind, and couldn’t care less that his offspring are all girls. He is restless, though, works too hard, and would like to know who is da’ is. This book take place during the Christmas season and is often evocative of the spirit of A Christmas Carol. One of Furlough’s clients is the local abbey, where he accidentally meets Sarah, who is locked in the coal shed after giving birth 14 weeks earlier. She would like to get out to throw herself into the River Barrow. Furlong’s life is altered by two revelations, one about his ancestry and the second the Catholic Church’s squalid and inhumane Magdalene Laundries, the last of which closed in 1996. If you don’t know about them, educate yourself. ★★★★

 

 

 

If you live in Vermont and don’t know the writer Archer Mayor, rectify this immediately. There is no such thing as the Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI), but detective Joe Gunther is as Vermont as it gets. How could I possibly resist a free copy of Mayor’s Paradise City (Minotaur Books, 2012, 306 pages), which is set in southern Vermont ski territory, Boston, and my town of Northampton, Massachusetts, whose nickname is the same as the book title? A torched McMansion in ski country owned by a rich out-of-stater, an old woman on Beacon Hill killed by thieves, a jewelry chop shop, arrogance, a family feud, a human smuggling operation, a depressed VBI agent, a meddlesome granddaughter, bad guys eliminated by worse thugs, a body left in Holyoke, and Governor Gail Zigman who was once Joe’s lover–who needs more? Plus, if you’ve lived in Northampton for more than a decade there are enough clues to keep you busy guessing who Mayor’s role models were. Likewise, if you know Vermont, there’s plenty to unravel. Gunther sees things others overlook, but can he crack his personal mysteries?  ★★★★★

 

 

 

Mit Out Sound (Chromodroid Press, 2024, 346 pages). The German word mit  means “with.” As a movie term it references parts of a movie recorded with-out-sound. In the novel from Rick Lenz it makes an appearance as a possible way to salvage a film project. Like too much of Mit Out Sound it’s also Lenz showing off his Hollywood insider knowledge. Emily Bennett is so obsessed with movies that it’s unclear if her face blindness is legit or a reflection of her fixation on celebrities. Though still young, she has been an assistant for Richard Boone. He accidentally mentions the existence of a partial reel for Showdown, an abandoned project that would have co-starred John Wayne (1907-79) and James Dean (1931-55). Emily is sworn to secrecy but proceeds to recruit two impersonators–Tom Manfredo (Wayne) and Jimmy Riley (Dean)­–a director/script writer, film editor, and backers to finish the film. Even her troubled brother gets a role. Emily  worships Wayne and discovers that he called off the film because he distrusted Dean. The novel’s best moments reveal how hard it is to make a movie. It does that so well that it’s difficult to believe that Lenz’s characters got anything off the ground. For what it’s worth, Wayne and Dean were in one film, Trouble Along the Way, though Donna Reed was Wayne’s costar, and Dean had a tiny role. An unconfirmed rumor held that a Wayne/Dean film really was underway. You can reuse movie titles, but neither of the two Showdown IMDB titles (1963/19773) have either Wayne or Dean in them. ★★★

 

 

If you poke around in the American West you’ll discover that “ghost” towns are quite real. There are entire settlements that simply outlive their purpose and disappear from maps. In a way, that’s the centerpiece of The River View (Counterpoint, 2024, 335 pages), a new mystery from Montana writer Jamie Harrison. This is part of Harrison’s Jules Clement series, but The River View is a standalone work. Clement is an interesting central character, an ex-sheriff who is an archaeologist/private investigator/new father. Like many in the Big Sky country, Clement lives close to the margin, but he and his wife Caroline, who works in the county sheriff’s office, are about to build their dream house (with considerable sweat equity). That is if they can ever get Divvy to dig the foundation. In the interim Jules is hired to make sure a new road doesn’t disturb a lost-to-time paupers’ graveyard allegedly just outside the hamlet of Blue Deer. The River View is an unusual book in that it’s part farce and part serious. As the first, it’s quite funny, as in a flasher with an odd penis; a soon-to-be-neighbor who’d like to buy out the Clements who are too close, all manner of building nightmares, and Russians floating about as muscle for unknown outsiders. They could be straight out of The Russians Are Coming, were it not for their serious guns. Of course, it’s never funny when people get killed and your neighbor might be either ridiculous, psycho, or both. And where in the heck is Doris, MT? The book suffers from too many characters and too many mysteries crammed into one book, including Jules’ search for his father’s murderer, which happened many years earlier. But I’ll take too much over too little. ★★★ ½