Krueger has, over a long career, brought the Midwest, or maybe more directly, Minnesota into the literary mainstream. His novels include his 2014 Ordinary Grace, the story of a small town and the people in it, all with larger implications for the human condition. Read it!
But now, I’ve just finished his 2019 novel This Tender Land, a story of 4 orphans, all young (children really) and very different people: a mechanical/engineer genius, a key storyteller (also the book’s narrator,) a mute Sioux Native American, and a young girl, 6 years old with maybe prescient powers.
They are found together at a Minnesota Indian boarding school in the 1930s. the engineer and the storyteller are brothers and white, but orphaned. The Sioux Indian has had his tongue cut out by evil people, but can sign, and his friends can understand him. The young girl is thrown in with the others when her mother dies, leaving her orphaned.
The school administrators are harsh, even evil people and the children they care for are beaten and put in solitary confinement often and occasionally, someone dies. There are numerous indignities told and others only hinted-at as Krueger avoids being fully descriptive of them, which makes the book eligible for younger readers who are able to handle adult themes.
Led by the oldest orphan – the engineer – they determine to run away and find their way to St Louis where the brothers have an aunt. Their journey begins by canoe on a small river, transitioning to the Minnesota river and finally the Mississippi. The book is chock full of adventure along the way with good and bad people, bad people who become good, and all the while being pursued by the evil school administrator (the Black Witch) and a corrupt sheriff.
Each encounter provides something of value to the human condition as also found in Ordinary Grace. Theology, predestination, evil, good, relationships, the failure of good intentions, coming of age, a hint at magical powers, all are found in this novel that made the New York Times Bestseller list. And I see why, but at the end it feels too neatly wound up. Still, that makes it a good summer read since it’s engaging and while the reader has to encounter bad things, the ending is extremely positive, and IMHO maybe a little too much so. But it was a best seller so what could I know?
Krueger uses the storyteller as the narrator so in first person we hear the whole story as told by the character decades later, when he’s in his 80s. This device gives the narration the maturity to leverage Krueger’s lyrical style amid plain prose, as well as (only sometimes) using more complex words and concepts. That is, the narrator can flesh out deeper meaning with credibility. So in many ways, this book is also a lesson, or series of lessons from which we can take what we want.
I maybe don’t praise this book enough, but I’ve state my reservations. Yet, I was completely drawn in by the narrator and Krueger’s ability to create an interesting character with his inherent goodness, but also his willingness to do something not so good for the sake of and in the interest of the 4 ‘vagabonds.’
If you’re looking for an adventure story with some literary depth and larger themes, this has it. If you find the resolution fitting, bless you. If you find the resolution a bit too neat as I do, then I hope you come away from it as I did: still glad I read it.
Write&Read 
Leave a comment