Shelterwood: A Novel

Lisa Wingate is one of my favorite authors and this book did not disappoint. As you can see, I read it in under a week and I loved learning about the Choctaw history in Okalahoma. Both time lines were engaging and both offered a mystery that kept me turning the pages. Every time I finish a Wingate novel I start thinking about what other aspects of American History’s less flattering side have been hidden from us and I want to know more. Her writing inspired me to write historical fiction where the reader is entertained while still learning something lesser known.

“One must never believe what can be read in the history books about powerful men. The wealthy have the privilege of writing their own stories as they like. Tonight I will tell you what is true. What was lived by these three young girls, if you would like to know.” “The children lived here all summer…The bigger ones worked in town for money, and the younger ones gathered wood and wild foods. After dark, they sat here in this very spot and told tales around the night fire. All sorts of tales…for every orphan has a story.” And being a ranger is no walk in the park! Shelterwood toggles between 1909 and 1990, a runaway orphan and a widowed ranger whose “story, if even remotely accurate, is a political grenade, especially in a park already plagued with local opposition, an unmarked burial site, a massive rockfall, and a dead body.” They seemingly have nothing in common but the Oklahoma forest in which their stories are rooted. But they discover, “A society is only as good as its women…it is an eternal truth…Your burden will often become your salvation.” Shelterwood is ultimately a tribute to Kate Barnard, “the politician who had the broadest influence on the state’s constitution and then went on to be elected to statewide office by the largest majority of any candidate on the ballot…The things she believed in, the battles she fought, her influence on the lives of ordinary working men, women, and particularly children” resurrected from the dust cloud of history. “Stories turn into memories. You just have to tell them enough…Long may stories continue to bind us together in bookstores, in libraries, in book clubs, in reading groups, and in all the other places we gather to share the adventures we’ve found between the pages. What lucky people we readers are that we live not just one life, but many, and diving into yet another is as easy as opening a book.”