I’m excited to share today’s conversation with an author I’ve recommended three times here on the podcast, and one whose work has been mentioned many more times as well: William Kent Krueger.
This is an author conversation that we originally held over in Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club, and which we’re sharing with you today as we explore Krueger’s book This Tender Land.
This conversation feels especially timely and has been on our minds and on our tongues, as This Tender Land was inspired by Homer’s The Odyssey, a timeless story that many of you tell us you’re looking forward to seeing on screen this summer in the new blockbuster adaptation film.
Today’s conversation and your enjoyment of it does not hang on whether you know anything at all about The Odyssey, or whether you’ve read anything by Kent Krueger yet. Join us as we explore the power of a good story well told, how authors make creative decisions, and the backstories behind Krueger’s beloved series and his decidedly different standalone novels. You’ll also hear the story behind his favorite pair of boots.
Let us know if you’re looking forward to seeing or reading The Odyssey this summer in the comments section.
What’s Happening in Book Club
We’re excited about our upcoming annual observance of Austen in August, followed by our Fall Book Preview in mid-September. We’d love to have you join us for our live events, including our seasonal previews and author chats like this one. Members also enjoy our robust community featuring dedicated book forums, buddy reads, classes, and more happenings. We hope you’ll find your book people in Book Club. Find out more and join us at modernmrsdarcy.com/club.
[00:00:00] KENT KRUEGER: I find it interesting, Anne, that this book is being called a historical novel. It takes place in the Great Depression, and I was born really not that long after the Great Depression ended.
ANNE BOGEL: They call the 1970s novel historical fiction, so.
KENT: Yeah, okay.
ANNE: We're all getting older, I guess.
Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel, and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read.
[00:00:43] In today's episode, we are sharing a meaty and satisfying author talk we enjoyed with author William Kent Krueger in Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club.
First, I want to give you a timely update about what's happening in Book Club. We just wrapped our latest Annual Readers Weekend that we've hosted online each summer since 2020. Members, whether you're a current member or you sign up today, can go to our member site to snag our Digital Readers Weekend kit with all the resources you might need to create your own reader retreat.
Right now in Book Club we're looking ahead to our annual observance of Austen in August, followed by our fall book preview in mid-September. You might also notice us reference our Book Club community picks in this author chat today. Our Book Club community manager, Ginger, tells me that that 2020 community read of The Odyssey, on which Kent Krueger's book, This Tender Land, is based, is still one she thinks about all the time.
[00:01:41] Reading our official monthly selections together means there's always bound to be someone to talk to about books. Recently, members of our community have hosted community reads for The Once and Future King, summer reading guide selection, The Fine Art of Lying, Game Changers, Middlemarch, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, and the one I'm participating in myself, Emily St. John Mandel's The Singer's Gun, and that is just to name a few.
We would love to have you join us for our live events in Book Club, like our author chats and seasonal book previews, as well as being part of our member community with its dedicated book forums, buddy reads, classes, and more happenings. We hope you will find your book people in our Book Club. Find out more and join us at modernmrsdarcy.com/club. That's modernmrsdarcy.com/club.
[00:02:27] Readers, today I'm excited to share a conversation with an author I've recommended three times here on the podcast, and one whose work has been mentioned many more times as well. He's beloved by many; that is William Kent Krueger, who you may know from his Cork O'Connor series or his standalones.
He's written five standalone novels, and today we're diving into one of them, This Tender Land. This happens in an author conversation that we originally held over in Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club, and which we're sharing with you in full with one edit that you will hear for spoilery reasons today.
This conversation feels especially timely and has been on our minds and on our tongues, as This Tender Land was inspired by Homer's The Odyssey, a timeless story that many of you tell us you're looking forward to seeing on screen this summer in the new blockbuster adaptation film.
[00:03:17] A frequent thing I've heard repeated from you is you're a little scared, but also you're excited. But today's conversation and your enjoyment of it does not hang on whether you know anything at all about The Odyssey, or whether you've read anything by Kent Krueger yet.
Today we're exploring the power of a good story well told. We're exploring how authors make creative decisions, the backstories behind Krueger's beloved series and his decidedly different standalone novels, and we're even going to hear the story behind his favorite pair of boots.
Kent won us over in like the first 20 seconds when he joined us in Book Club. You are going to hear why. I am so excited to share this conversation with all of you today. Let's get to it.
Kent, thank you so much for joining us today.
KENT: A pleasure to be with you, Anne. Thanks for the invitation.
[00:04:07] ANNE: Well, it's a pleasure to welcome you to Book Club, everyone. We're so glad you could be here. We've known for a long time that we would love to discuss really pretty much anything with you. I know we have lots of fans of the Cork O'Connor series here. I think it was actually Janine, are you here today, who said, "Anne, based on what you love, you've got to read this series by my fellow Minnesotans." From there, I read Ordinary Grace and then This Tender Land. We really enjoyed reading your fiction, but also there's so much to talk about for Book Clubs. So thank you for coming to talk to us today about This Tender Land.
KENT: Again, my pleasure.
ANNE: Well, let's start by, if you could, give us a brief overview of the book. And y'all, we have a treat. Kent said that he is an experienced reader. I know you've heard some authors say that there's nothing they'd rather do less than read in a bookstore, but that is not Kent's background. And I'm really excited to hear you talk a little about the book and read us the prologue. I'm going to open mine and follow along.
[00:05:06] KENT: Thanks very much, Anne. This Tender Land, for those of you who haven't read it yet, takes place in the summer of 1932, deep in the Great Depression. It's the story of four orphans running from the law because they've committed a terrible crime, but for the right reason.
They know if they take to the roads to get away, they'll be caught rather quickly because a huge manhunt has been launched to capture them. They're afraid to ride the rails, as everybody was doing back in the Depression, because the railroads back then were patrolled by private cops called bulls. And the bulls had a reputation for being incredibly cruel, so the kids are afraid to ride the rails.
Instead, they decide to take to the rivers. They canoe a river called the Gilead to the Minnesota River. They canoe the Minnesota River to the Mississippi. And their plan is to canoe all the way down the Mississippi River to St. Louis, where they believe they have family and they'll be safe. I have always wanted to write an updated version of Huckleberry Finn. This is my Huckleberry Finn.
[00:06:09] I'm going to read the prologue to you for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's really short. It's just over a page. But the other reason I like to read this prologue to audiences is that it's simply maybe my favorite piece of my own writing ever. So this is how I bring readers into This Tender Land.
"In the beginning, after He labored over the heavens and the earth, the light and the dark, the land and sea and all living things that dwell therein, after He created man and woman, and before He rested, I believe God gave us one final gift. Lest we forget the divine source of all that beauty, He gave us stories. I am a storyteller. I live in a house in the shade of a sycamore tree on the banks of the Gilead River. My great-grandchildren, when they visit me here, call me old. "Old is a cliché," I tell them with mock disappointment, "a terrible trivializing and insult. I was born along with the sun and earth and moon and planets and all the stars. Every atom of my being was there at the very beginning." "You're a liar," they scowl, but playfully. "Not a liar. A storyteller," I remind them. "Then tell us a story," they plead. I need no goading. Stories are the sweet fruit of my existence and I share them gladly.
[00:07:39] The events I'm about to share with you began on the banks of the Gilead. Even if you grew up in the heartland, you may not remember these things. What happened in the summer of 1932 is most important to those who experienced it, and there are not many of us left. The Gilead is a lovely river lined with cottonwoods already ancient when I was a boy. Things were different then, not simpler or better, just different.
We didn't travel the way we do now and for most folks in Fremont County, Minnesota, the world was limited to the piece of it they could see before the horizon cut off the land. They wouldn't have understood any more than I did, that if you kill a man, you are changed forever. If that man comes back to life, you are transformed.
[00:08:32] I have witnessed this and other miracles with my own eyes. So among the many pieces of wisdom life has offered me over all these years is this: open yourself to every possibility, for there is nothing your heart can imagine that is not so.
The tale I'm going to tell is of a summer long ago, of killing and kidnapping and children pursued by demons of a thousand names. There will be courage in this story and cowardice, there will be love and betrayal, and of course, there will be hope. In the end, isn't that what every good story is about?"
ANNE: Thank you for that.
KENT: You're welcome.
ANNE: What copy are you reading from?
KENT: I'm reading from the advanced reader's copy, the ARC.
ANNE: Okay, is it marked up? Do you keep it handy? Is it dog-eared?
KENT: It is dog-eared. It's the one I always read from.
[00:09:31] ANNE: Okay. Do you keep it at your desk? Do you travel with it when we can do such things?
KENT: Yes, both of those.
ANNE: Okay, we will get the slew of audiobook questions we now have. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I have read in some interviews that the origin story for this book actually goes back to Ordinary Grace, a book that was different from your previous works and was quite successful. And I'd love to hear you elaborate a little on... you know, in your own words, what led to the publication and the writing, first of all, of this novel?
KENT: I think it's an interesting journey, and thank you for asking about it. So, I cut my teeth on the Cork O'Connor mystery series, which, you know, is in a genre. But about 10, 12 years ago, a story idea came to me that wasn't a part of the Cork O'Connor series. It wasn't suited to the Cork O'Connor series. And when I proposed that project to my publisher, they didn't want it. In fact, they called me out to New York City in kind of a panic and sat me down and said, "Kent, we only want Cork O'Connor stories from you."
[00:10:39] So I knew if I wrote this story, it was going to be a very risky proposition. Clearly, my publisher wasn't interested. I had no idea if any other publisher might want it. But it was a story that spoke to me in such a compelling way that I knew I had to write it.
So across the course of the next three years, every moment that wasn't devoted to a contractual obligation in my Cork O'Connor series, I spent composing the manuscript for Ordinary Grace. Now, even though my publisher had told me they didn't want it, when it was finished, I went ahead and sent it to my editor at Simon & Schuster. She fell in love with it. She said, "Of course, we're going to publish it." And they did.
And Ordinary Grace has just had this remarkable, really gratifying reception among critics and readers alike. It won tons of awards when it came out. It's been translated into a couple of dozen languages. So far it's sold nearly a million copies. And when my publisher saw how well that book was doing, boy, did they want another book just like it.
[00:11:31] So I signed a contract and spent the next two years writing what I believed would be the companion novel to Ordinary Grace. Now, that manuscript was contractually due to my publisher five years ago. Two months before that contractual deadline, I set up a meeting in Chicago to talk with my agent about revisions to the work because there were problems with it. I knew it. She knew it.
Two days before we met, I sent her a note saying, "When we get together, I don't want to talk about how we revise this piece. I want to talk about how we keep it from being published." Because it wasn't the story I'd imagined it would be. I didn't know how to make it that story. And frankly, my heart was no longer in it. It turns out I have a very understanding publisher. They said, "Fine, you don't have to give us this manuscript, but you still owe us a companion novel."
So here's the deal, Anne. The expectations for that follow-up novel were enormous. And the whole time I was trying to write the story, I just felt crushed by the weight of all those expectations. And the truth is, when I was writing that manuscript, what I was trying to do was, you know, meet everybody else's expectations instead of writing the story that spoke to me from my heart.
[00:12:45] But when that weight got lifted off my shoulders, and I felt free again, I saw so very clearly the story I should have been writing. And honestly, it was a story I've been wanting to write since I was 11 years old. When I was 11 years old, in the fifth grade, toward the end of that year, our teacher read to the class out loud, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He did it by reading half an hour every day after lunch. And I loved that book.
I mean, here was this kid who was just like me, and he's having these great adventures on the Mississippi River. And after that, of course, I had to read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I also loved. And so across my whole career as a writer, I have wanted to write a story in which I could pay homage to Mark Twain. And that is a major part of the inspiration for This Tender Land.
[00:13:36] ANNE: We're so glad that you returned to Huck Finn. Now, with both Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land, you have a character looking back over time, telling us a story that we know is complete. But as readers, we don't know how we're going to get from here to there. And when you have a character looking back over the decades, like your narrators have in Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land, you have this wistful, reflective feel to it that really suits these books... Well, we'll focus on This Tender Land, although we have a pitch for Ordinary Grace, making a note. It really suits the story well. How did you know that that was the way the story needed to be told? How did you decide on that?
KENT: I didn't at first. I tried to write the story a couple of times during my career, and I was never able to sink my teeth into it. And the reason was that I could never see the structure for the story. I knew it was going to be some kids on the river, what it was going to be set, what they were doing on the river, where they were coming from, where they were going. I knew the Mississippi would be involved. But beyond that, I really didn't know anything.
[00:14:53] And then when I came out from that dark period of that manuscript that I was disappointed in, I saw the structure for the Huck Finn story. And it was a structure that was inspired by another book I loved as a kid. I have to tell you this. My father was a high school English teacher, and so he always had me reading Great Literature instead of the stuff that most kids were reading, I'm sure.
But I read so many of the epic, mythic journeys when I was a kid. One of those journeys that was a favorite of mine was the Odyssey. I loved Homer's Odyssey as a kid. Not so much the Iliad, but I love the Odyssey, the story of a guy making his way back from Troy to Ithaca, and having all of these incredible adventures along the way.
So when I came out of that dark period, I thought, "I'm going to write the Huck Finn story and I'm going to use the structure of the Odyssey to create it." These kids are going to experience many of the same kinds of things that Odysseus experienced on his long journey from Troy back to Ithaca. I didn't know which of the many experiences I would use, but these kids' journey would mirror that of Odysseus, which gave me the structure.
[00:16:08] But this story really revealed itself to me pretty much as I was going down the river with the kids. Which adventures would happen, I sort of decided on after I had completed one section of the book. So where are they going next? Why are they going there? What are they supposed to learn there? I discovered, basically as the reader discovers it, going through the story as it is.
And I have to tell you that it's a very different process than I follow from my Cork O'Connor series stories, which I think through significantly before I ever set pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard today. I wanted this story to be different, to come to me differently. I wanted it to feel organic, which it did. And it was an extraordinary creative experience for me as a result.
[00:16:55] ANNE: Many readers really enjoyed noticing the similarities. And there's a reason that I'm not asking Kent this, though you're sitting right here, but sharing an insightful comment from a fellow book clubber, I want you to know that even to someone who's not behind the scenes of this process, the way you're drawing on the Odyssey was apparent. You can decide if you want to jump in and say, "Yes, yes, that's right, that's right," or, "Not exactly."
But let me read Nicole's comment. She wrote in our forum, so you can go see this: "I was surprised at how many characters from the books, that's This Tender Land and the Odyssey, overlapped. It's kind of brilliant. One-Eye Jack is obviously the Cyclops; Aunt Julia is Penelope with her problematic suitors. I think that maybe Sister Eve represents the sirens with her beautiful voice that causes the vagabonds to abandon their ship for a while. Also, this place where they discovered the skeleton and learn how many Native Americans were murdered here, much like the sailors upon the rocks. And the people in the flats could be the lotus eaters, as only Odie wants to leave this group of people who nourish the vagabonds with the very little they have. Maybeth seems like Calypso in that Odie fell for her and almost stayed with her family. Finally, it feels like none of the Odyssey monsters are terrible enough to be the Black Witch, but I think she may be Circe, beautiful and powerful with the ability to turn men or students into animals. Odysseus only escapes her by remaining immune to her tricks and enchantments and with help from Athena. Athena guides Odysseus and changes his outcomes when she can. This can only be Emmy, right?"
[00:18:21] KENT: Well, this is a brilliant dissection, and I love it. And it's almost dead on except for one thing. For me, Sister Eve is Circe. Sister Eve right at the very beginning tames the beast in men. She has what appear to be the powers of a sorceress. And we're never quite sure, at least in the beginning, of her intentions toward Odie and his companions. So aside from that, everything else is absolutely dead on. Bravo!
ANNE: A-plus, Nicole. Now, Kent, I'm wondering, so many readers read your book, and then we have a group reading through Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey right now together. And we may have read Homer once in high school but haven't touched it since. And we don't have the story internalized in the way that I suspect you might.
[00:19:20] KENT: You know, that doesn't matter. When I was writing it, and I was using the Odyssey to give me a structure for the story, I thought, "This is going to go over the head of most readers probably." And that didn't matter to me. What mattered to me was that I created, in the Great Depression era, a story that would ring true for readers. And even if they didn't understand the parallels I was drawing, that wouldn't matter. They don't need to know the parallels with the Odyssey in order to enjoy the story. And I hope they pick up on the themes that I was trying to weave throughout the narrative.
ANNE: Something that we've talked about here in Book Club before that I firmly believe is that when a novel has deep structure and symbolism, even if the reader doesn't consciously notice, it lends a heft and weight to the story that they cannot help but feel. Really what I meant, because I absolutely agree with what you're saying, is, is this a story that has lived in your bones for a long time?
[00:20:25] KENT: Oh, yeah, absolutely. It has. In one form or another, bits and pieces of it. This was the coalescing of lots of ideas I've had from the past. Lots of scenes that I've tried to write earlier on. Very early on in my career, I wrote a short story, a failed short story, about a couple of kids who stumble onto an evangelical revival group who work with snakes. The short story didn't work out, but I resurrected it for the visit with the Sword of Beauty and Healing Crusade. Other bits and pieces of it have been with me for a very long time. And just the whole idea of a Huck Finn-like character has haunted my imagination forever.
ANNE: Wherein lies the appeal of young Huck Finn on a journey down the river? What stirs the imagination for you in that?
[00:21:16] KENT: Well, for me personally, Huck Finn and my Odie represent the kind of kid I wish I'd been. They're both rebellious. They're both adventurous. They're both resourceful. They're both, in their way, fiercely loyal. And I was none of those things when I was a kid. You know, I was the goody two-shoes.
And so when I thought about writing a revisionist Huck Finn, I thought, "The character I create is the character I'm going to have a lot of fun with. And he's going to do the kinds of things I always wished I had done as a kid." That said, I spent a lot of time on rivers when I was a kid, probably doing things that my parents, had they known about it, would have thrown up their hands in terror, you know?
ANNE: This reminds me of some things you referenced in the author's note, which readers, we say this every time we read a historical novel, do not miss the author's note. I'm trying to remember, is it in the audio version, Kent? Do you know?
[00:22:15] KENT: I believe it is. I believe everything that's in the original work is also in the audio version. And then there's additional content in the audio version.
ANNE: Okay. Because they're not always in the audio version and you'll be rewarded if you track down a copy of the author's note whenever you read a historical novel. But in addition to referencing some of your inspirations for characters, which I'd love to get to in a minute, you talked about your research process, including spending time on the river.
KENT: Oh yeah.
ANNE: Did you always know that would be important to the story?
KENT: I did. I did. I've never written a story about a place I haven't visited myself. And although I write a lot of murder mysteries and have never committed a murder myself, I try to experience as much of the rest of what happens in the book as I can. So when I knew these kids were going to be on a river journey and I had a sense of the rivers I wanted them to be on, I kayaked or canoed those stretches of the river that the kids canoe.
[00:23:14] So I kayaked the stretch of the Minnesota the kids are on and my wife and I canoed the stretch of the Mississippi River that the kids actually canoe. So, yeah, I wanted to get a feel for what it's like to be on these rivers. What would the kids see? What kind of, you know, fears might they have?
As we were talking earlier before we came live, yeah, I was kind of scared when I was out there on the river. So I bought myself a kayak, an inflatable kayak, to do the river work with, and I had only been in the kayak once before I set it on the Minnesota River.
And so I'm in this kayak that's a little unknown to me and it's tipping a little more than the manufacturer guaranteed. And I've got my life vest on... and I have never been on the Minnesota. I've done a number of other rivers, never been on the Minnesota, which is kind of a silty river. So you can't really, generally speaking, see the bottom. I know there are deep holes there. The current's pretty swift because this was during a kind of a flooded period in Southern Minnesota. And I'm thinking, "Oh God, if I go over, what's going to happen? Well, I've got my vest on, but you know there are whirlpools in this river that can suck you down? And maybe there's quicksand here. God only knows what's... you know, snags under there. So as I'm thinking this, I'm thinking, "Okay, what happened?" I looked over the side of the kayak and the bottom was about two feet below me. Okay. I just get out and walk.
[00:24:47] But on the Mississippi River, the day that my wife and I canoed the Mississippi, the barge traffic was enormous. And the wakes from those enormous vessels and the barges that they're pushing were just huge. And a couple of times we really were afraid we were going to get swamped.
ANNE: At what point in the writing process did you go on the river?
KENT: Pretty much after I had completed the first draft of the manuscript, then I went back and was doing a lot of research to get the central details correct. Make sure that what I had... I had already traveled this territory in my car and stopped and got out, took photographs of all the places where things occurred, but I needed to get onto the river as that final piece of it. So it was after the first draft was finished.
ANNE: That's fascinating. Now I could spot Aimee Semple McPherson's influence in the manuscript, but you also referenced in the author's note a fictional character that I was unfamiliar with that really influenced the way you shaped her character. Would you tell us a little bit about both women?
[00:25:54] KENT: In the early part of the 20th century, there was a great revival, tent revival movement, with a lot of miracle healing that went along with it. And these shows were popular across the entire country. So Billy Sunday, maybe as a name, some readers are familiar with, Aimee Semple McPherson, another slightly later revivalist. And these were people who drew hundreds of thousands of followers to their faith healings, to their preaching of the gospel, of their very evangelical preaching of the gospel.
But by the time of the Great Depression, that movement had died out across most of the country, with the exception of the South and the Midwest, where these shows were still quite popular. So I did a lot of reading of Aimee Semple McPherson and her belief in having been tapped by God. And she was an interesting woman, but I found a more complex and really compelling character in Sinclair Lewis, in his novel, Elmer Gantry.
[00:26:57] For those who haven't read Elmer Gantry, you've forgotten it, during a portion of Elmer Gantry's career, he hooks up with a revivalist named Sharon Falconer, who is definitely a woman of the world, that's very clear, but she is also a woman who firmly, devoutly believes that God has called her to preach a gospel of love to the masses. And so I thought, "What an interesting character she would be." And so more than Aimee Semple McPherson, even, I used Sharon Falconer as kind of a template for Sister Eve. But Sister Eve grew into her own character, with her own set of remarkable talents.
ANNE: I love how, when we start digging into this book, we can't do it without talking about the power of story. There are stories woven through the books, there are stories to you that served as inspiration. In your prologue, Odie is telling us that story is... well, I was going to say story is everything. You probably know how he says it in his own words in like sentence two. Did you say something?
[00:28:04] KENT: Lest we forget the divine source of all that beauty, He gave us stories.
ANNE: Very good. I was wondering at first. I really thought you might have been reciting and not reading your prologue.
KENT: Well, I have read it so many times, I could probably do it.
ANNE: Do it with your eyes closed. He gave us stories. In this book, you're addressing issues that go to the heart of what it means to be human and many of the core struggles of human nature through the lens of story, and in your own words, instead of Odie's, though I wonder how much they might overlap, Kent. I'd love to hear you discuss a little bit why it matters to discuss these things, to tell stories instead of talking about topics.
[00:28:49] KENT: For me, stories can do so much more than entertain. Stories can enlighten us. They can encourage us. They can inspire us. And maybe the most important thing that stories can do for us is they give us hope. So when I write a story, one of the things that I really try to do is set out to write a story that ultimately is going to be a story of hope. Because honestly, when I read a piece of fiction, when I get to the end, I want to feel as if I've been on a journey. And in my own understanding of the world, and my own understanding of myself, I'm in a different place than I was when I began that story.
So I try to do everything with my stories that I think a story has the potential of doing. They are so important to who we are. You know, across countless millennia, stories have told us who we are as a people. They have given us instructions on how we're supposed to behave, or even how we're supposed to do our daily things in life. Stories are, I think, every bit as important to us as breathing. There you go.
[00:30:05] ANNE: There is so much we could discuss: poverty, the Great Depression, faith, hope, and children in peril in those reform schools. But I just want to focus on one because Michelle, in advance of today's talk, asked a really nice question, nice meaning thoughtful, and I'd love to hear what you said.
Her question was rooted in... Well, here, I'll just read this in her own words. She says, "Why does an author who obviously cares deeply for Native communities and culture choose to silence them here? Is it perhaps to reflect the way Native communities were and are silenced to show the loss when assimilation of tribal cultures into the American culture is completed?"
Now, it's interesting. She's talking about themes that I believe are visible not only in This Tender Land, but in your murder mysteries as well, which, perhaps surprisingly to some readers, also have that undercurrent of hope and do address these topics that matter so much through the lens of story. I know this is just one facet of a substantial novel, but I'd love to hear you reflect on that.
[00:31:10] KENT: Sure, Mose is mute. Mose, one of the vagabonds, the Native kid on the journey, is mute. And he's mute because he represents something much larger than himself. He represents an entire culture that had no voice. And that has always been the situa... continues to be really the situation for so many minority cultures in our country, and particularly the indigenous people.
For more than 100 years, from the late 1800s until 1978, when the National Indian Child Welfare Act was passed, if the government came to your home and you were Native American and said, "We want to take your child away to a government boarding school," you had no recourse. You could not prevent them from doing this. You had no voice in the matter.
[00:32:12] So one of the things that I wanted to talk about in This Tender Land was that lack of voice, at least in the beginning of Mose's journey. But for those of you who have read the story, you know across the course of the journey, all of the children discover things about themselves. They're all seeking something different, and they all end up... Well, I don't want to give it away.
ANNE: Oh, but there's that great scene. There's that great scene with... yeah.
KENT: Mose, as he travels across this epic summer for him, begins to discover who he is, discover the importance of where he has come from, the importance of his people, of his culture. And though he has no voice, he begins to understand how to speak for his people, and by the end of the story, he has a powerful voice for his people.
[00:33:06] ANNE: This reminds me of a much more lighthearted question from Shannan. Do you know sign language? Do you play the harmonica? What was your inspiration for using both in this story?
KENT: I do not know sign nor do I play the harmonica. But I did a good deal of research in terms of sign language so that I could make it as realistic as possible. Odie, in my early thinking, I knew Odie was going to play two important roles on this journey. He was going to be the guy who had to hold everybody together and keep them focused on moving forward, as Odysseus did with his crew while he had a crew, and he was going to be the guy who had to keep their spirits lifted up when dark things happened and threatened to drag them all down.
And he was going to do it in two ways. I knew he was going to be a storyteller, 'because boy, I was looking forward to using Odie to talk about so many of the things that I think are important as a storyteller. But I knew he was going to use music then as the way to lift up the spirits of his crew, his group, the other vagabonds.
[00:34:14] And when I thought, "Okay, how is he going to do this with music? He's on a river. They're traveling. You know, you can't bring a tuba along on their river journey. So what's he going to play?" And I thought, "Well, of course, a harmonica," because it's so easy to carry and it's so iconically American. And the tunes that fit a harmonica are just... they go way back in our awareness as a culture here in the States. So I thought, "Okay, he's going to play the harmonica." I had no idea about the harmonica. I had to talk to some of my friends who do, in fact, play harmonicas to get an idea of what that would be like and to help me choose some tunes that would be appropriate for the harmonica. So I had a lot of fun in that.
I actually believed I was going to learn at least how to play Shenandoah on the harmonica so that I could do that when I did book events. Didn't happen. I'm pretty lazy.
ANNE: Oh, that would've been amazing at book events.
KENT: I thought so too.
[00:35:15] ANNE: Well, it's a good thing you're such a good reader. If I had to choose, I'd rather hear you read the prologue.
KENT: Well, thank you.
ANNE: Now, I have resisted asking you about your in-depth research process because you talk about it in the author's note, but I mean, we're together, and I can't resist. You read a ton of information to give the story that authentic feel and texture that makes us feel like these are real people, this happened, we're right there with them.
And I would love to hear... Here's the thing about the reading experience. You don't appreciate all the ways the author got it right. You just feel that it is so, until they get something wrong, and then it jumps right out at you. But this story feels so right. And I know that's not just luck or good writing, but also painstaking research. Would you tell us a little bit about your journey into memoir, microfiche, and whatever else you touched in the process?
[00:36:11] KENT: Sure. You know, I find it interesting, Anne, that this book is being called an historical novel. Takes place in the Great Depression, and I was born really not that long after the Great Depression ended.
ANNE: Well, they call the 1970s novel historical fiction, so.
KENT: Yeah, okay.
ANNE: We're all getting older, I guess. What do you call it?
KENT: I grew up on stories that my folks told of surviving the Depression. My father was from Oklahoma, and I grew up on his stories during the Dust Bowl years of watching it rain mud from the sky and having to go out and scavenge greens from vacant lots and along railroad tracks to supplement their meals. My mother was born in North Dakota and was farmed out at four years of age to a distant relative because her family simply couldn't feed all of the mouths that they had to feed at that point.
[00:37:00] So the Depression wasn't like history to me. It was all of these great stories that my parents told. But I hadn't lived during that period of time, and I knew to get the factual underpinnings correct. We are blessed here in St. Paul to have a great historical resource in our midst. We have the Minnesota History Center here. Inside the Minnesota History Center is a section called the Gale Family Library, which is simply an archive of all of the newspapers ever published in Minnesota.
So I spent hours and hours poring over microfilmed newspapers from back in the... particularly the summer of 1932, to know what the kids would've been aware of in that time. What were people conscious of? What were the important events of the day? What were the fashions like? What did things cost? What kinds of foods were people eating? All of that. So that when I wrote the story, I didn't want to hit the reader over the head with all of the research I'd done. I needed to make sure it integrated in just a very matter-of-fact way in terms of all of the activities that were going on in the story. So I hope I accomplished that.
[00:38:09] Here's one of the interesting things I learned. I learned a lot of interesting things, but here's one of the really interesting things. Back in the Great Depression, people didn't have a lot of money to buy clothes, so women took to using flour sacks and feed sacks to create clothing, their dresses, they would make shirts out of them. And when all of these companies became aware of that, they began putting out flour and feed and other things in patterns so that people, when they created this clothing from it, would... It would look not like sacks. It was just such really a kind of a gracious offering to the people out there who were in need, I thought.
ANNE: Now we're shifting to reader questions, lest I get in lots of trouble. Here's an interesting one that hadn't occurred to me from Mary Ellen. "Do you know," or I'm going to add, do you wonder, "if Mark Twain was thinking about the Odyssey when he wrote?"
[00:39:02] KENT: God only knows what Mark Twain was ever thinking. That guy was brilliant and so off the wall, you could just never predict where His profound wit and wisdom is going to take you as a reader. I have no idea if that was on His mind. I have more a Shakespearean feel when I read Huck Finn rather than a Homer feel, in all honesty.
ANNE: Janine says, "As a fellow Minnesotan, I'm curious, what drew you to focus on this aspect of Minnesota history, the Native American boarding schools?"
KENT: I knew when I discovered the structure of the book, really saw the structure, that these kids had to be running away from essentially a war zone as Odysseus was leaving the war zone behind him in Troy, and I wanted them to be running from a horrific environment. And because I'd been working with the Native community now for more than two decades, I've been aware for a very long time of the horrific situation of the Native American boarding schools, and I couldn't imagine a more horrific environment for the kids to have to flee from than that.
[00:40:17] So I decided, okay, I'm going to do this, but I'm also going to do this because it's a situation most White folks are clueless about, never even heard about. And I thought, well, maybe this might be a way that I can raise a little bit of consciousness at the same time.
ANNE: Moke asks, "Did the names of characters and places have particular significance? Gilead and Moses are more obvious biblical references, but were there others, and why did you choose them?"
KENT: God only knows. I am always asked about the names of my characters, and honest to God, sometimes I flounder around a long time before I settle on a great name. I knew Odie's name, Odysseus. I had no idea what his last name was going to be or really what his history was going to be until I began to create him and I saw this rebellious Irish streak in him, and I thought, "Okay, I'm going to make him Irish, of Irish ancestry," and then worked on a number of names until O'Banion felt right.
[00:41:27] Albert, I needed a very stiff name for an older brother who's kind of stiff in a lot of his behavior. Moses, I loved the Biblical reference because he's a kid who's found sort of in the same way that Moses is found, among the reeds. And Washington just because... Well, God, I can't even remember why I chose Washington as the superintendent's, you know, iconic figure from American history. Emmy was always Emmy, for whatever reason. Her name came to me right away with the character.
Sister Eve, she came to me very early on as Eve, another Biblical reference. The Gilead I chose because obviously there's a balm in Gilead. These kids start off on the Gilead on their journey, and it's a river that treats them kindly in the beginning, as they need to be treated after the horrific experiences they've had. And it treats them kindly until they join the Minnesota River and a lot of things start to happen there. Beyond that, I don't know what to say.
[00:42:33] ANNE: Well, I asked how do you choose them. You said, "God only knows." My first question was the God of the tornado or the other God? Which leads us to talk to us about the title.
KENT: This Tender Land, I love that title. It came to me as I was driving across southern Minnesota one day, and I happened to be listening to our classical music station here. An absolutely gorgeous piece of music that I was completely unfamiliar with came on, and as I listened to it, I was just swept up and swept away. And when it finished, the announcer said, "You've just been listening to an excerpt of the only opera Aaron Copland ever composed called," and I thought he said This Tender Land. The actual title of the opera is The Tender Land, but I heard, "This Tender Land," and I thought, "Oh, God, there it is. That's the title." And I have always just loved what that title suggests.
[00:43:31] ANNE: Here's a question that never occurred to me from Danny: "Were the Red Wing boots inspired by Hermes the messenger?"
KENT: No. But now that you mention it, I wish they had been. No, they were inspired by my love of Red Wing boots. I was married in a pair of Red Wing boots that I picked up in a used clothing store actually, along with a suit that I picked up at a used clothing store. I was married back in the days of Love Child, of the flower child days, and so we didn't have the kinds of big festive weddings that they have now. Ours was full of daisies that we gave to everybody, and my wife made her dress and I bought mine at a secondhand store. So Red Wing boots have been deep in my heart.
I worked construction for many, many years as a young man. I always wore Red Wing boots because honest to God, they were the best boots I thought you could buy. When I moved to Minnesota, Red Wing boots are manufactured here, so I had to give Odie and the other boys on the journey their own pair of Red Wing boots.
[00:44:37] ANNE: Now I'm about to ask Kent a question from about the halfway mark in the novel. Kent, you can answer this however you'd like. Readers, I'm about to ask Kent a question about setup and payoff, and my question itself hints at a spoiler, so we wanted to cut it here. But we did want you to be able to hear Kent's spoiler-free answer. It's coming up.
I found that thread to be so satisfying and well-placed without feeling overly clever, which makes me wonder...
KENT: Or manipulative.
ANNE: Yes. Oh, because there's... Well, okay. No, with disregard for whether this is an accurate superlative, there is nothing worse than feeling like the author is just messing with you, so...
KENT: Yeah.
ANNE: Or thinks they're cleverer than you. But I just really love the way that you laid that thread. Which makes me wonder, what part or parts of this story did you find just satisfying to write?
[00:45:40] KENT: That was one of them. That was certainly one of them. You know, as a mystery writer, one of the things that I've learned is the joy of suspense for a reader. I don't care if you're trying to write a thriller or straightforward literature, suspense is really what it's all about, creating a sense in the reader that they want to turn the next page to find out what happens.
And so as I was writing that section of the novel, I was creating characters, Sister Eve, Sid, that raised a lot of suspicion in a reader's mind, a suspenseful wonderment about who these people are and where are they going with this story, and how much should I trust them? So as a writer of suspense, I just reveled in that section.
ANNE: I'm glad you did, because I found it extremely satisfying to read. And that's interesting that the things you learned writing mysteries work so well in this book as well. Okay, we're not going to chase that thread because we just have a few more for you. First, tell us about Ordinary Grace, Kent.
[00:46:47] KENT: Ordinary Grace is set in the summer of 1961 in a small town deep in the very beautiful Minnesota River Valley, the same territory that the kids travel in This Tender Land. It's the story of a Methodist minister whose beloved child is murdered. That's the compelling mystery component. But at heart, it's really the story of what that terrible tragedy does to this man's faith, his family, and ultimately the entire fabric of this small town in which he lives.
For anybody who's read my Cork O'Connor novels, they're going to see an undercurrent in many of those stories that deals with the spiritual journey. It's a situation that comes quite naturally for the protagonist in those stories, Cork O'Connor, because he's a man of mixed heritage. He's part Irish American, and he's part Ojibwe Anishinaabe. So he's a man with a foot in two different spiritual traditions: his White Catholicism, he's Irish Catholic, and his Ojibwe spirituality.
[00:47:47] So very often in those stories, he's trying to figure out where his unique spiritual path lies. And that's been an issue for me my whole life. I wrote This Tender Land in large measure because I wanted to explore more deeply the question of the importance of the spiritual journey that I believe we're all on, whether we embrace that or not. Until I wrote This Tender Land, it was far and away my favorite piece of my own writing. I thought I would never write another book as meaningful to me as that one was, and then I wrote This Tender Land.
ANNE: Now, you can choose how to answer this, knowing that some readers have said, "Oop, I just bought Iron Lake. It's going to be here on Saturday." And some readers are waiting with bated breath for the next Cork O'Connor novel. But the question is, what's next for Cork?
KENT: I finished the first draft and have sent it off to my agent for her review of number 18 in the Cork O'Connor series. It's a novel called Lightning Strike, and it's actually a prequel to the series.
ANNE: Oh.
[00:48:50] KENT: It takes place when Cork is 12 or 13 years old. For anybody who knows my series, they know that Cork O'Connor was sheriff of the fictional Tamarack County when he was an adult. As a child, as a young man, his father was sheriff of Tamarack County before him, and his father was killed in the line of duty when Cork was an adolescent. Lightning Strike takes Cork in that summer before his father is killed. And what it's allowing me to do is explore the relationship that Cork had with his father, the relationship that Cork had with his mother, the relationship his parents had with each other, all these important relationships that helped shape Cork into the man who occupies center place in the series. I have just enjoyed tremendously going back in Cork's life and creating him as a young man.
ANNE: Now, you might have just answered my final question as well, but at the beginning, before we welcomed everybody into the room, Kent, you and I were discussing your writing and what you're doing right now, but we didn't discuss what you are writing right now. What are you working on?
[00:49:54] KENT: Two novelettes. Lightning Strike won't be... Typically, I would have a novel released this fall. I have a novel pretty much released every single fall, but the pandemic has changed the thinking of many publishers, mine included, and they are delaying the release of a lot of their books. My novel now has been postponed for release until the fall of 2021. But I'd like to try to bring something out in the interim period, so I'm putting together two novelettes, and I'm just enjoying the hell out of that experience. So that's what I'm at work on right now.
ANNE: Have you done the short form before?
KENT: I never have. I'm finding it an interesting exercise, really. Very creative, interesting exercise.
ANNE: So for readers who don't know, how would you describe what a novelette is?
KENT: It's much longer than a short story, much shorter than a novel. So these are running about 125 pages apiece.
ANNE: Are they independent or characters that we may know?
[00:50:54] KENT: No, they're completely independent, very different timeframes. One takes place during the massive flooding of the Mississippi River that took place in 1928 and 1929. It's the story of some convicts who are impressed into labor helping save some people who are trapped by the flood. And the second novel takes place in 1980. It's the story of a man and his wife traveling across the country, retracing their honeymoon at the very end of their lives together. A very poignant story.
ANNE: Oh, Kent, I never asked you about your audiobook. The first time I read This Tender Land, I read it on audio. Scott Brick was wonderful, and I heard-
KENT: Oh, good.
ANNE: ...that you had a good amount of input into... That you felt strongly about how the book would sound to listeners, which we are grateful for.
[00:51:45] KENT: Yeah. And for the very first time, I had a hand in helping select the reader for this. We had three essentially auditions, and both my agent and I liked Scott Brick the best. And I think he's just done an outstanding job with the reading of This Tender Land.
ANNE: Did your publisher ask you this time, or did you stand up and say, "Let me into that process"? I'm just interested in what it was about this story that made that change.
KENT: Well, I know what I asked of my audio publisher was I want a different voice for this than we used for Cork O'Connor, and I think I'd like even a different voice than we used for Ordinary Grace, because I don't want any of them to sound like the others. They all need to stand alone. And my audio publisher said, "Fine, so let's take a look at what our options might be." And I just really appreciated being brought in on that process. You know, really the writer is kind of the lowest guy on the totem pole in most of the publishing process.
[00:52:50] ANNE: Well, I'm glad that you're pleased with the results, because many of us certainly were as well. Kent, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time to discuss your work with us.
KENT: Well, I have had a delightful morning with you. Thank you so much, Anne, for the invitation.
ANNE: We hope that we can hear from you again, and we really hope that we can catch you in person sometime. A favorite bookstore in your area?
KENT: Every mystery writer in my area who launches a novel launches it at a marvelous independent mystery bookstore called Once Upon a Crime in Minneapolis. So a shout-out to Once Upon a Crime.
ANNE: That many of us know from afar, if not in person. Well, I hope I get to see it myself and you one day. Thank you again.
KENT: I hope so too.
[00:53:39] ANNE: Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed listening in on our conversation with William Kent Krueger. Find the full list of titles we talked about at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. And if you'd like more conversations like you heard today, even to join us live and ask the authors questions yourself, come and join us at modernmrsdarcy.com/club.
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[00:54:42] Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by executive producer Will Bogel, Media production specialist Holly Wielkoszewski, social media manager and editor Leigh Kramer, community coordinator Brigid Misselhorn, community manager Shannan Malone, and our whole team at What Should I Read Next? and Modern Mrs. Darcy HQ. Plus the audio whizzes at Studio D Podcast Production.
Thank you to our book club community manager, Ginger Horton, for bringing this particular episode together this week and for hosting the initial conversation with me.
Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.
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Books mentioned in this episode:
• The Cork O’Connor series by William Kent Krueger (#1: Iron Lake)
• Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger (Audio edition)
• This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger (Audio edition)
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
• Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
• Lightning Strike by William Kent Krueger
Also mentioned:
• Aimee Semple McPherson
• Minnesota History Center
• The Tender Land by Aaron Copland
• Red Wing Boots
• Once Upon a Crime
• Please support our sponsors.
One comment
William Kent Krueger is one of my favorite authors and Ordinary Grace is one of my top all time favorite books.