Two novels today that belong at the top of your TBR pile. One is a debut from a Minnesotan, the other from a Wisconsinite. Their characters live through dark times, but both end with hope.
“Life, & Death, & Giants”: by Ron Rindo (St. Martin’s Press, $26)
(Courtesy of St. Martin’s Press)
I took the envelope my father had left me upstairs to my bedroom. I drew back the curtains to allow the sun to shine in. I sat on the bed and tore open the envelope. Though I have read it over many times since, the letter seems to smolder in my hands each time, so close it is, so close it must be, to the perpetual flames of hell. — from “Life, & Death, & Giants”
This stunning novel by a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh is about so many things — community, family, loss of faith, strained marriage and a famous giant named Gabriel Fisher.
Rindo’s inspiration for Gabriel was Robert Pershing Wadlow, the tallest person who ever lived. He died in 1940 in Michigan at age 22.
Gabriel lives in the small town of Lakota, Wis., where he is a wonder. He walks at 8 months and is over 6 feet tall as a child. He communicates with animals, tenderly cradling the goats when their throats are cut for butchering, and he is so strong at 7 years old that he hits a softball into windows of cars in the distant parking lot.
The story is told through the eyes of four characters: Hannah Fisher, Gabriel’s Amish grandmother; Billy Walton, owner of the local bar and friend of Hannah’s husband, Josiah; Thomas Kennedy, kind veterinarian who takes young Gabriel on his rounds; and Tony Beathard, one of Gabriel’s coaches.
After Gabriel’s mother, Rachel, died giving birth, he lived on a hardscrabble farm with his older brother. Rachel went to her grave without speaking of the boys’ father. When Gabriel’s brother dies, the boy moves in with his Amish grandparents. As he grows taller and stronger in his athletic ability, he is the town’s pride. When he accepts a college football scholarship, his grandparents fear the English world (their word for non-Amish) will spoil him. But they let him go. (Glimpses into the lives of Amish people are one of the most interesting parts of the story, especially the community’s embrace of Gabriel when he needs them most.)
The first parts of the book are about Gabriel’s childhood and athletics and his maturing to almost 9 feet tall, but after he’s grown up, his character is more fully revealed. When he leaves to travel the world, Hannah begins to doubt her faith and moves in with Kennedy in a chaste relationship.
Hannah’s emotions are heartbreaking as she struggles with losses in her life. At Kennedy’s house, she is introduced to books by women, including Emily Dickinson, whose poem “Life, and Death, and Giants… ” inspired the novel’s title. Hannah, who has read only the Bible, is amazed and comforted that these women shared her emotions and seemed to know exactly the way she feels.
Meanwhile, Gabriel is traveling the world until an accident sends him home. A shocking family secret is exposed, and death comes to Lakota.
The richness of this story and the beauty of Rindo’s prose are getting praise from readers and critics. As they should.
“The Many Mothers of Dolores Moore”: by Anika Fajardo (Gallery Books, $29)
I had thought I had seen every paper in this folder, but this scrap was unfamiliar. I ran my thumb along the torn edge. This piece of paper was proof — of what I wasn’t sure. Staring at this makeshift map in the quiet of my mothers’ empty house, I felt a great whoosh of recognition: The map, I was certain, was the key to fulfilling my promise. — from “The Many Mothers of Dolores Moore”
Family is also at the heart of this involving debut novel by an author who was born in Colombia and raised in Minnesota and lives in Minneapolis.
(Courtesy of Gallery Books)
Dolores Moore is a 30-something cartographer who’s just lost her job. She’s still grieving for the two lesbians who adopted her, one of whom was her maternal aunt. Dolores knew she had been born in Colombia, and when her aunt/mother was dying she made Dolores promise to visit the place where she was born. When Dolores finds a crudely drawn map of places in the city of Cali, she knows she has to keep her promise.
A little unsure of herself, Dolores finds the apartment building where her mother and Colombian-born father lived in happiness. Then the narrative moves between Dolores’ explorations of the city, where she feels oddly at home, and her parents’ love story in 1989.
In a touch of magical realism, Dolores hears a chorus of voices made up of her deceased female relatives, including her two mothers, aunts, great-aunts and grandmothers, commenting on her decisions. Sometimes they suggest what she should do; sometimes they comment on what she is doing. Sometimes they quibble among themselves.
Back in the United States, Dolores reconnects with Franklin, a former lover. He and his Vietnamese grandfather care for her cats while she is in Colombia. Now she has to figure out what to do with her life. Then nature steps in, forcing her to make her biggest decision.
This is lovely writing in which the author weaves information about the history of maps and how they are made, and Dolores imagines her parents in love in their little apartment where her mother/aunt took care of her as a baby.
Fajardo is the author of a memoir, “Magical Realism for Non-Believers,” and two books for young readers. She will be at the Twin Cities Book Festival on Saturday, Nov. 8, at the Union Depot in St. Paul.
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