After The Flood by Kassandra Montag

After The Flood by Kassandra Montag
Read by Hilary Huber
Published September 2019 by HarperCollins Publishers
Source: audiobook checked out from my local library as part of Omaha Reads

Publisher's Summary:

A little more than a century from now, the world has been utterly transformed. After years of slowly overtaking the continent, starting with the great coastal cities, rising floodwaters have left America an archipelago of mountaintop colonies surrounded by a deep expanse of open water. Civilization as it once was is gone. Bands of pirates roam the waters, in search of goods and women to breed. Some join together to create a new kind of society, while others sail alone, barely surviving. 

Stubbornly independent Myra and her precocious and feisty eight-year-old daughter, Pearl, fish from their small boat, the Bird, visiting small hamlets and towns on dry land only to trade for supplies and information. Just before Pearl’s birth, when the monstrous deluge overtook their home in Nebraska, Maya’s oldest daughter, Row, was stolen by her father. 

For eight years Myra has searched for the girl that she knows, in her bones and her heart, still lives. In a violent confrontation with a stranger, Myra discovers that Row was last seen in a far-off encampment of raiders on the coast of what used to be Greenland. Throwing aside her usual caution, she and Pearl embark on a perilous voyage into the icy northern seas to rescue the girl, now thirteen. 

On the journey, Myra and Pearl join forces with a larger ship, a band of Americans like them. In a desperate act of deceit and manipulation, Myra convinces the crew to sail north. Though she hides her true motivations, Myra finds herself bonding with her fellow seekers, men, women, and children who hope to build a safe haven together in this dangerous new world. 

But secrets, lust, and betrayals threaten to capsize their dream, and after their fortunes take a shocking—and bloody—turn, Myra can no longer ignore the question of whether saving Row is worth endangering Pearl and her fellow travelers.

My Thoughts:

Some years ago, I began picking all of the books for my book club. While I worked to make sure they were books that were discussion worthy and that I thought would appeal to the book club overall, I also only picked books that I wanted to read. Book club no longer became a place where I was pushed to read out of my comfort zone (even as I pushed the other members to do the same). 

Once a year, the Omaha Public Library (along with votes from the community) selects a book for Omaha Reads that the community will read together. They are always books written by Nebraska authors or set in Nebraska. They are not always books that were on my radar or that I would have picked up otherwise. The Omaha Reads books tend to be the only time my book club reads a book out of my comfort zone and After The Flood was no exception. It also proves that it's good to read out of your comfort zone sometimes. 

Yes, After The Flood is, like most other dystopian novels, a survival story. But it is also much more than that. It is the story of what a mother's love makes her capable of doing as well as a story of hope, trust, and secrets. While Myra is a complicated character, we are drawn to her out of pity (she has lost her mother, father, and grandfather to the floods - how could you not pity her?) but also because of her courage. She will do anything to protect the daughter she gave birth to on Bird (the boat her grandfather built in their attic) but is also willing to risk everything to save the daughter her husband kidnapped. 

But as I begin to see what Myra was capable of doing, I began to question just how much I should trust her. Was she a reliable narrator, when we know that she is lying to others? Myra is not the only one keeping secrets and all of them will come back to haunt the crew of the Sedna, the ship Myra and Pearl are saved by when the Bird sinks. 

While After The Flood is nowhere as unrelenting or a dark as Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Montag successfully builds mounting tension, fills the book with a level of violence that feels believable given the situation, and doesn't end her book happily-ever-after. But she leaves readers with hope. And, although Montag never explains what caused the world to flood, I can't help but believe it was caused by climate change, I need to be able to find hope in a future that oftentimes feels so hopeless. 

The Bones of Paradise by Jonis Agee

The Bones of Paradise by Jonis Agee
Published August 2016 by HarperCollins Publishers
Source: my copy through the library for book club

Publisher's Summary:
Ten years after the Seventh Cavalry massacred more than two hundred Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee, J.B. Bennett, a white rancher, and Star, a young Native American woman, are murdered in a remote meadow on J.B.’s land. The deaths bring together the scattered members of the Bennett family: J.B.’s cunning and hard father, Drum; his estranged wife, Dulcinea; and his teenage sons, Cullen and Hayward. As the mystery of these twin deaths unfolds, the history of the dysfunctional Bennetts and their damning secrets is revealed, exposing the conflicted heart of a nation caught between past and future.

At the center of The Bones of Paradise are two remarkable women. Dulcinea, returned after bitter years of self-exile, yearns for redemption and the courage to mend her broken family and reclaim the land that is rightfully hers. Rose, scarred by the terrible slaughters that have decimated and dislocated her people, struggles to accept the death of her sister, Star, and refuses to rest until she is avenged.

A kaleidoscopic portrait of misfits, schemers, chancers, and dreamers, Jonis Agee’s bold novel is a panorama of America at the dawn of a new century. A beautiful evocation of this magnificent, blood-soaked land—its sweeping prairies, seas of golden grass, and sandy hills, all at the mercy of two unpredictable and terrifying forces, weather and lawlessness—and the durable men and women who dared to tame it.

My Thoughts:
When The Bones of Paradise was picked to be this year's Omaha Reads selection, one of my book club friends quickly suggested our book club read it and even grabbed one of the library's book club bags with books for us. It included an audiobook copy which I took with us on a recent trip. We got through one disc (which was no reflection on the book; just new terrain that involved more concentration for driving and navigating); my husband was already saying the book was "brutal." I wouldn't have thought that would scare him off but it did; he never asked to read or listen to it again. It did not, however, scare of the ladies of my book club. Not sure if that says more about my husband or my book club friends!

My husband was right; this book is often brutal. But life in the Sandhills of Nebraska in 1900 was brutal, from the weather to the people who inhabited it, and Agee's writing reflects all of the ways that life could be tough in 1900 western Nebraska, from ice storms to tornadoes to the American government to the men (and women) who lived there.

THIS is what the Lakota were
doing that so alarmed the Indian
agent who called in the military

As unforgiving as that land is, in Drum, J. B. and Ry Graver (who discovers the bodies of J. B. and Star) we see the lengths a person will go to to try to own their own piece of it. It makes some people harder, it breaks others, and it drives men to do things they wouldn't think themselves capable of to try to hold on to it.

As the story moves back and forth in time, in part to tell the background stories of many of the characters. But Agee says the real reason she told the story from multiple points of view was to "respect the events and Native Americans at Wounded Knee by making them as alive and as vivid as possible...I dramatized key events with my characters involved so that the impact of the massacre could be registered as horrific as it was." There are several characters who "were there" at Wounded Knee. (Drum, J. B., Ry, and Star). It's this day that is at the center of the book, pulling the story of what happened to the Indians in that area into the story of the Bennett family and the people surrounding them.

And THIS is what was done to the Lakota at Wounded Knee

I was glad to have read this book with a group. I had some questions when I finished and it helped to have people to bounce them off of, many of them having to do with the reason Cullen was sent to live with Drum and why Dulcinea left the ranch. I didn't entirely buy into Agee's reasoning but others in my book club found those reasons believable. All of the characters (with the possible exception of Rose) are deeply flawed and many of them are so hard that they are hard to care for. But Agee lets readers see the humanity in most of her characters and readers can understand what makes them the people they are.

About those murders...there is a murder mystery element to this book, after all...some in my book club figured out early on who killed J. B. and Star. Others were holding on to their own theories until the end. Either way, the slow reveal of what happened in that meadow was satisfying. The ending of the book, though, left some (including my mom) not as satisfied. My mom said she felt like Agee had gotten to the end of the book and didn't know how to finish it so rushed into the ending that we have here. Agee, herself, says she didn't know who killed J. B. and Star when she began writing the book but that she did rewrite the ending many times. One of our book club members said, "how would you have finished the book?" I'm not sure, to be honest. I just don't think it would have ended the way Agee ended it.

Still, it's a fascinating, complex novel, filled with interesting characters and dynamics, one in which the setting plays a very important role. Which, for this girl who was born in the Sandhills of Nebraska, is a very good thing.

Lit: Uniquely Portable Magic

So many bookish tidbits to share with you this week!

#1 Better World Books had a sale. The Big Guy suggested that I shouldn't have ordered books because I don't need any. I laughed. Then I reminded him that they were on sale. If you read my post yesterday, you know what a sucker he is for a sale so he really had no comeback for that. Here's what I picked up (after I removed ten other books from my cart - BG has no idea how lucky he is I didn't buy all of them!):

Defending Jacob by William Landay: this one isn't something I'd normally pick up but it's the kind of thing I'm into right now and it does get very good reviews

Our Souls At Night by Kent Haruf: I've never read a Haruf book I didn't love

You Can't Touch My Hair by Phoebe Robinson: because humor works for me know but I'm also getting a some racial enlightenment while I'm at it

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert: Creative Living Beyond Fear is the subtitle - hope against hope that she can get my creative juices flowing

#2 Like a lot of communities, Omaha has chosen one book for the city to read together (Omaha Reads). This year's selection is Jonis Agee's The Bones of Paradise (which my bookclub will be reading for October). As part of the celebration of that book, the Omaha Public Library system has lined up speakers/authors whose books or areas of expertise tie into The Bones of Paradise in some way.

Wednesday night, a friend and I went to hear journalist/teacher/author Joe Starita talk about his book, I Am A Man: Chief Standing Bear's Journey For Justice. Starita was a great choice; he is passionate about the subjects he writes about and about story telling in general. He spoke for 45 minutes then took another 30 minutes just to answer two questions! The money he made selling books last night all goes into a scholarship fund for Native American high school seniors for college. It was great to see people who already had the book drop off money just for the scholarship fund or add a couple of extra dollars to their purchase. As it happens, I had my parents' copy and was able to get it autographed for them.

#3 I mentioned yesterday that we had gone to the Milwaukee Art Museum while we were in that fine city. Mini-me wanted to get us into the building (it's an incredible structure) but he was also eager to have us see the works of Rashid Johnson. The biggest piece on display is titled "Antoine's Organ." It's an incredible work.

And why might it be relevant to this blog? Because throughout the work, Johnson has included books about the black experience in America, including Richard Wright's Native Son, Te-Nehisi Coates's Between The World And Me, and W. E. B. Dubois's The Souls of Black Folks, all of which I'd like to get read one of these days.

In the final room of the exhibit, copies of the books were available for people to sit down and read through; of course, they were all available for purchase in the gift shop as well. I loved seeing the book world and the art world blended together.


#4 Finally, it's September, which means it's time for my annual Fall Feasting reading. Because I kind of forgot about it and because I want to make time for R.I.P. reading and Nonfiction November reading, I'm probably only going to get a couple of foodie books this fall.

I do have other books that could work for both Fall Feasting and Nonfiction November so I may be able to get one of two more worked in as well; but, for now, I'm shooting on (finally) reading The Vegetarian by Han Kang and (in honor of the people I love who live in Wisconsin) The Telling Room:  A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese. 

I'd also like to take the time to read a cookbook as well; you know, the kind that don't just have recipes but all kinds of great information about food and cooking. Perhaps the one that's simply titled Soups? It is, after all, the perfect time of year to find some new soup recipes! Do you ever just sit down and read your cookbooks?