The year is 1932, and Odie (age 12), Albert (his brother), Mose (who can’t speak, but signs with Odie and Albert), and Emmy (the daughter of a teacher) flee from the Lincoln Indian Training School after a tornado hits. Bad things happened at the school prior to the tornado. Beatings, quiet room, bootlegging, adultery, and the embezzlement of money for the benefit of the student being stolen by the Brinkman’s (the proprietors of the school, Mrs. Brinkman is referred as “the black witch”. My favorite teachers from the school were Emmy’s mom and Mr. Volz (both, good people in a really bad environment).
Before the children fled, Emmy’s mother had been planning to let the boys come live with her, but that never happened as she was killed in the tornado, which is what sets the whole escape in motion.
During their adventures, they met good people and bad people, and they themselves even helped some people out by doing good deeds. For me, it felt like there trip dragged on and a few times, I wanted to stop reading. What surprised me most was Emmy’s belief visions and Aunt Julia. I would’ve liked to see more of Sister Eve.
Everything that happened is being retold by Odie many years later.
I am now reading, The River We Remember, also by WKK.
Last month, I saw a post in one of my Facebook book review groups: William Kent Krueger, live Q&A, 45 minutes from home. I got excited. Then immediately nervous, as I would be attending alone. How would that work?
I never got to find out, because I forgot about the day it opened for reservations, remembered the next day, and, it was sold out. So the universe protected me from my own seating anxiety by simply removing the event entirely. Oh well!
