This Tender Land: A Novel
In the summer of 1932, on the banks of Minnesota’s Gilead River, Odie O’Banion is an orphan confined to the Lincoln Indian Training School, a pitiless place where his lively nature earns him the superintendent’s wrath. Forced to flee after committing a terrible crime, he and his brother, Albert, their best friend, Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own. Over the course of one summer, these four orphans journey into the unknown and cross paths with others who are adrift, from struggling farmers and traveling faith healers to displaced families and lost souls of all kinds. With the feel of a modern classic, This Tender Land is an enthralling, big-hearted epic that shows how the magnificent American landscape connects us all, haunts our dreams, and makes us whole.
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Community Reviews
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
444 pages
What’s it about?
This is the story of four orphans on the run from the authorities during the Great Depression. We hear the story through Odie- the impish protagonist of the novel. I would liken this book to Huck Finn meets the Odyssey. Only William Kent Krueger could pull that off....
What did it make me think about?
As so many good novels do- it made me think about what constitutes a family.
Should I read it?
One of my favorite books is William Kent Krueger's Ordinary Grace. What a hard task It must be to follow up such a well-loved work. I was not disappointed in This Tender Land. The plot kept me interested and I always seem to love the characters Mr. Krueger creates. Much like Mark Twain, these characters seemed uniquely American and of a certain time and place. Sometimes I did feel like some of the passages were a little sugary-sweet, but I still bought into the story wholeheartedly. I am sure anyone who loved Ordinary Grace will be more than satisfied with this latest novel. I highly recommend this one!
Quote-
"Everything that's been done to us we carry forever."
"From the height of a certain wisdom acquired across many decades, I look down now on those four children traveling a meandering river whose end was unknown to them. Even across the distance of time, I hurt for them and pray for them still. Our former selves are never dead."
If you liked this try-
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Virgil Wander by Leif Enger
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
The Garden of Small Beginnings by Abbi Waxman
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