This Tender Land - August CC Book Club Discussion

[mathmom]

This is the best corner of College Confidential. And it gets me reading all sorts of things I would not have read otherwise.

[jerseysouthmomchess]

Welcome back ! Agree with Mathmom best book club ever

[Colorado_mom]

So glad you came back. It’s a fun group. These bimonthly boos/threads have brightened my first year of retirement, when Covid prevented doing many of the other things I had envisioned.

[AnAsmom]

Welcome back.

This is my favorite corner of CC. Best book club and discussions!!!
I always learn so much more about each book that we discuss than I ever would have on my own.

[HImom]

I just read “While Justice Sleeps” by Stacey Abrams and would highly recommend and love to discuss when we are ready to consider next book. It’s a mystery thriller.

[Mary13]

@goodenuffmom

I found it easy to read as it was a straightforward journey and not Cloud Atlas

Lol! Welcome back @goodenuffmom – so glad you’re here!

[ignatius]

Nice to have you here.

[Mary13]

@Mary13

7. Why does Odie trust Sister Eve so wholeheartedly, but not her partner, Sid? Do you think he’s right to draw the conclusions he does about Sid from their interactions? How do some of Odie’s misjudgments lead to disastrous consequences? In your opinion, is what happens to Albert in some way Odie’s fault?

Odie views Sid with more animosity than he deserves. Sid is a necessary evil – he handles the flim flam side of the operation that Sister Eve would like to distance herself from.

I knew the minute Odie threw Sid’s vial into the river that the substance was not going to turn out to be what he thought it was. Good thing Albert survived (with a little help from Emmy) or Odie would never have been able to live with the guilt.

[Mary13]

@stradmom

The importance of names runs throughout the book: Emmy never uses a pseudonym, Mose (with some parallels to the babe found in the bullrushes) takes the name Amdacha meaning Broken to Pieces, Albert becomes Norman. Odie becomes Buck Jones, the cowboy.

I was thinking about this…I’d say that the fact that Emmy never uses a pseudonym shows both her purity–she is incapable of being duplicitous–and also her acceptance of self. She is comfortable with who she is (even if she still has much to learn about her special gift) and there’s no mystery about her family of origin.

Also, I can’t believe I didn’t look up Buck Jones until just now and…wow…what a tragic end.

BUCK JONES IS DEAD OF INJURIES IN FIRE; Cowboy Movie Star Succumbs Along With...

On November 28, 1942, he was a guest of some local citizens in Boston at the famed Coconut Grove nightclub. Fire broke out and nearly 500 people died in one of the worst fire disasters on record. Jones was horribly burned and died two days later before his wife Dell could arrive to comfort him. Although legend has it that he died returning to the blaze to rescue others (a story probably originated by producer Trem Carr for whatever reason), the actual evidence indicates that he was trapped with all the others and succumbed as most did, trying to escape.
Buck Jones - Biography - IMDb

Buck’s fate came long after Odie was a grown man; still, I kinda wish he had called himself Tom Mix or Gary Cooper instead.

[jerseysouthmomchess]

@Mary13 from the link you sent,

“ his constant boast was that he had remained “an old-time cowboy, the sort the kids used to want to grow up to be like”

Buck Jones had such a tragic death. Reminds us all that tragedy is just around the corner, he had such a storied life, such a horrific death.

Regarding a pivotal event in the book. WKK, truly made me believe that Albert had died, and as stated above this would have been Okie’s most profound test.
I was shocked and relieved,
Albert lived, it was “edge of the seat” scene for me, and,
WKK surprised me, in a good way.

[Mary13]

@jerseysouthmomchess

Reminds us all that tragedy is just around the corner, he had such a storied life, such a horrific death.

I do think that’s part of the message of This Tender Land. Odie, in the clutches of DiMarco, could have ended up like Billy Red Sleeve; Mose, abused as a child, could have ended up like the young Indian skeleton he found; Albert was pulled back from the brink of death; Emmy survived the tornado that killed her mother who was right next to her.

If I were to try to sum up a theme for the book, it would be “Nothing is certain but forgiveness.” Sister Eve reiterates that when she says, "When I pray, Odie, I never pray for perfection. I pray for forgiveness, because it’s the one prayer I know will always be answered.”

The first part of Sister Eve’s quote above is:

“If we were perfect, the light he shines on us would just bounce right off. But the wrinkles, they catch the light. And the cracks, that’s how the light gets inside us."

Which makes me wonder if the well-read, well-rounded, musically inclined (per his bio) William Kent Krueger is also a Leonard Cohen fan. Anybody familiar with the lyrics to Cohen’s “Anthem”? In part:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

The entire song is really beautiful and I kept thinking of all the lyrics as I read This Tender Land: Lyrics to Leonard Cohen's Anthem - Google Search

Here’s a lovely rendition by Julie Christensen and Perla Batalla:

Anthem

[jollymama]

Wonderful lyrics, and such a moving performance.

[AnAsmom]

That song is really beautiful. I was reminded of it as well when I read those lines in TTL.

I was on a Louise Penny binge last winter. One of her books is titled How the Light Gets in, I read that she is a fan of Anthem as well and, in fact, has used that line several times in her books.
That line has reverberated with me since then.

[jerseysouthmomchess]

Very beautiful, @mary13

[Colorado_mom]

I was so hoping we’d get a happy surprise to find Emmy and her sainted mom survived tornado. So yay that Albert survived.

Odie’s “God is a Tornado” thought is understandable. I was worried about him putting it on the water tower… thought it would somehow lead to the kids being chased for their other crimes.

[HImom]

I understand why both Odie and Albert were so distrustful of “God, as they truly led rather brutalized lives. I also understand why Emmy and Moses were scared and how the 4 vagabonds bonded.

They were an unlikely family in many ways but they were very good and kind with one another. Under other circumstances their patches would likely never gave crossed.

I was glad they all went on to live interesting lives after this journey, according to the epilogue. It’s always interesting to imagine what happened after the book ended.

[mathmom]

Krueger seems to have a thing about epilogues. I am not a fan. I’d rather he left more to my imaginations.

[Mary13]

Epilogues would be awful in some novels, but I think it works for a book like This Tender Land. The characters’ futures are like the book – a little sweet, a little sad, a little fanciful.

There’s definitely some “bloom on the rosebush” in the epilogue, with Odie married to Maybeth Schofield and Aunt Julia becoming an elite fashion designer.

[jerseysouthmomchess]

@mathmom I agree with you about epilogues, an easy way for author to wrap up things, but in this case,
I think it gave us the “happily ever after” to the “story”.

WKK, the “storyteller”, gave us “THE END” , with that wink and nod, admitting he embellished, as good storytellers often do.

[Mary13]

3. When Odie and Albert attempt to buy boots, the clerk is skeptical that Albert and Odie would be able to afford the $5 price tag. After Odie lies about getting the money from their father, a second clerk remarks, “If he got a job these days, he’s one of the lucky ones.” This is Odie and Albert’s first experience of life outside of the Lincoln School. What sense of the current state of the world do you get from this encounter?

The discussion questions were straight from Krueger’s website, and many of them–this included–reinforce the feeling that This Tender Land is at heart a YA novel. Obviously–to all of us–the book is set during the Depression and we know a whole lot about that era. (My parents were children in the 20’s and 30’s and their stories of those years always seemed like recent history, not ancient.)

This question is related to the one above:

9. Hoovervilles (named for President Herbert Hoover) were shantytowns that sprang up all across America during the Great Depression for homeless individuals and families. In difficult times like this, how do people like the Schofields survive? Is there an expectation that the government will help them, or do they look to other sources for assistance? How do the residents of this particular Hooverville pull together? How are they driven apart?

There wasn’t much government help in those days; this story takes place before The New Deal. I’m reading about Hoovervilles – didn’t realize the extent to which Herbert Hoover was loathed:

In addition to the term “Hooverville,” President Hoover’s name was used derisively in other ways during the Great Depression. For example, newspapers used to shield the homeless from the cold were called “Hoover blankets,” while empty pants pockets pulled inside out–demonstrating no coins in one’s pockets–were “Hoover flags.” When soles wore out of shoes, the cardboard used to replace them was dubbed “Hoover leather,” and cars pulled by horses because gas was an unaffordable luxury were called “Hoover wagons.”
Hoovervilles: Definition & Great Depression - HISTORY

Some Hooverville photos: Hooverville hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy