We’re looking at an eclectic mix of genres today, including two novels and two in crime/mystery.
'Summer of Rain, Summer of Fire' by Bill Meissner (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, $22)
It’s the 1960s and the Keyhoe family, who live in a small Minnesota town, are being quietly torn apart by the war in Vietnam.
Phil is spending the last summer before college goofing off with his best friend, Tommy, and working at the gunpowder-producing plant where his father Karl is safety supervisor. Phil is also experiencing unexpected feelings for Mariah, a girl who is looking for her destiny. Phil’s mother, Frances, is the obedient, stay-at-home wife.
When Karl has a heart attack, everything changes. Phil gives up college plans and goes to work in the gunpowder facility, which is so dangerous workers wear protective gear. Mariah goes off to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her letters to Phil nearly stop as she becomes enmeshed in the anti-war protest movement and comes under the spell of sexy leader Daniel, who believes in fighting violence with violence. (Madison was the birthplace of Students for a Democratic Society, an influential voice in the protest movement.)
Tommy is wounded in Vietnam and Phil is furious. He gives in to Mariah’s pleas for help with a supposedly-peaceful demonstration at the plant by stealing maps from his father’s office.
Everything becomes violent when a protester piloting a stolen plane drops a bomb on the ammunition plant instead of harmless pamphlets. (This is based on a real-life event in 1969 in central Wisconsin.)
Meissner, who has written three previous works of fiction and six poetry collections, is an emeritus member of the Creative Writing program at St. Cloud State University. For those who don’t remember the Vietnam conflict, he shows all sides of this confusing time in American history.
Like many in the older generation, Karl is proud of his work at the plant. Phil is lonely, angry about his wounded friend, questioning everything about his life and the war. Frances is saddened by the rising death rate and finally connects with a local anti-war women’s organization.
What Meissner does so well is give us these turbulent (and terrible) days from each of the characters’ points of view. And he’s fair in presenting their differing feelings. His depiction of the conflicting views of the war will resonate with every reader whose family split over whether the conflict was justified.
“I’ve worked on versions of this novel off and on for about two decades, so it’s a very important book to me,” Meissner wrote in a private email. “The setting is very much like my hometown and my father worked in a power plant like the one described in the book.”
“Summer of Rain, Summer of Fire” earned praise from writers, including Tim O’Brien, Minnesota-born author of the Vietnam-era classic “The Things They Carried.” He writes: “This novel captures those small, powerful details that combine to produce an indelible image of one of the most wrenching eras in our nation’s history. But Meissner has the storyteller’s gift for creating living characters, living speech, living emotions, living drama. The novel will not only entertain — in the highest sense — but will also touch the reader’s heart.”
The author will discuss his novel with Minnesota writer Shannon Olson in a virtual program at 8 p.m. Eastern Monday, Jan. 23, presented by Magers & Quinn. Information at: magersandquinn.com/event.
'The Lindbergh Nanny' by Mariah Fredericks (Minotaur Books, $27.99)
In her first fiction based on a real-life person, Fredericks tells the story of Betty Gow, nurse (who’d now be called a nanny) to 20-month old Charles Lindbergh Jr., son of Minnesota-born aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. They were the golden couple of the era, with every part of their life fodder for the press.
Gow, who was born in Scotland, loved the “little Eaglet” as the press dubbed the golden-haired child. She and the Lindberghs were devastated when, on March 1, 1932, the child was missing from the crib where Gow had carefully put him down for the evening. Charles Lindbergh, known as colonel, had decreed the child was not to be disturbed during the early evening so Gow had some time to herself after she and Mrs. Lindberg wrestled with trying to close a warped shutter in the bedroom. That detail that would play a big part in the investigation that followed because the baby was taken through that window by someone using a ladder.
The crime, which took place on the family’s remote 390-acre estate near Hopewell, New Jersey, was the crime of the century and there were wild speculations in the press about Gow, who immediately came under suspicion. Law enforcement officers grilled her over and over about her whereabouts that night, even though the Lindberghs told detectives the staff was not to be treated as suspects. But Betty had been in a relationship with a young sailor and some believed she was careless with the child, maybe partying when she was supposed to be working.
Betty, a no-nonsense woman who is distrustful of men after she was jilted in Detroit, figures the kidnapper had to have been helped by someone on the staff who knew the child would be at the estate unexpectedly because Mrs. Lindbergh had a cold.
Fredericks does a masterful job of taking the reader into the lives of the Lindbergh household as seen through Betty’s eyes. She considers Col. Lindbergh aloof and sometimes cruel, as when he hides the baby in a closet without telling Betty or his wife and laughs at their frantic attempts to find the child. He considers Anne, who is a pilot herself, to be too emotional. Tiny Anne Lindbergh is kind and gracious. The couple spends a lot of their time at the home of Anne’s parents, and Mrs. Morrow is a friend to Betty.
Betty herself becomes stronger as the press makes her a focal point of the kidnapping story. Rumors swirl around her, like the one about how she’s connected to a Detroit kidnapping ring. And she learns to be careful around the detectives during interviews, figuring out what they are getting at with seemingly innocent questions. Their attitude reminds her how often men can use their positions of power to dominate women.
After the child’s body was found and Anne was again pregnant, the family was kind to Betty but she knew they wanted a new nanny and a new beginning. She returned to Scotland but came back to the United States to testify in the trial of Bruno Hauptmann, who was convicted of the kidnapping. She lived the rest of her life in her home country.
'When the House Burns' by Priscilla Paton (Coffeetown Press/Epicenter Press, $16.95)
In the third in her Twin Cities Mystery series (after “Where Privacy Dies” and “Should Grace Fall”), Paton sends detectives Deb Metzger and Erik Jansson into the intricacies of the real estate market. Characters include a sexy young widow, a developer with dubious morals, a homeless man who stalks the young widow. Metzger, a tall lesbian, is looking for a place to live and a loving partner. The detectives work for G-Met, a branch of local government that fills in when other law enforcement agencies are overwhelmed. They’re an interesting pair, with some quippy dialogue between them. Lots of threads to this story that ultimately come together.
'Dark Blue' by Dan Cohen (Page Publishing, $15.95)
Cohen, former president of the Minneapolis City Council, is familiar with police work. So it’s not surprising this short,117-page police procedural that hinges on a corpses’ hands in the snow combines police and politics. Cohen explores, among other things, why cops don’t trust other cops. At the center of the story is William Timothy Reagan, a “former Boston Police Commissioner and a flaming liberal” who’s at the top of the list “when the congressional liberals needed a high-profile cop to help balance the parade of law-and-order types.” An interesting trial makes this a quick and satisfying read.
