The last book I recommended, in April no less, was Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King. It has made it onto the Booker Prize Short List by now, and deservedly so. The interwoven tale of women’s participation in Ethiopia’s defense against Mussolini’s invasion, the role of war photographers in the fascistic propaganda machine, and the redemption of individuals who paid a price for war that no human should possibly carry, was breathtaking.
These days I am reading another tale of resilience writ large, a novel in a wholly different category, yet the perfect book for our strange times. Kingdomtide by Rye Curtis is a genre-crossing adventure tale that celebrates the human spirit, compassion, good deeds and the power of belief. In case that sounds off-putting as being too goody two-shoes, rest assured: this is a weird, twisted, often bitingly funny romp involving a 72-year old prissy Presbyterian plane-crash survivor that killed her husband of 54 years and an alcoholic park ranger in the Bitterroot Mountains in Montana, who divorced her husband now serving time for trigamy, and works with a motley crew of misfits, sexual deviants, and general human jetsam.
Just the kind of thing that your poor brain, overwhelmed by the daily news, can process without being too strained, realizing after a while that you are not reading adventure trash after all but a smart, psychologically attuned, insightful depiction of people rising to intense challenges. People who restore our presently endangered faith in humanity.
The plane crash happens on the beginning of Kingdomtide, a term I had to look up. It was a liturgical time period reaching from Pentecost (late August) to shortly before Advent, installed by several American Protestant denominations in the 1930s to foster a commonly shared topic among the diverse congregations. The focus was on God’s kingdom and the need to do good works during these days now known as Ordinary Time in the Church calendar.
Well, good works can be found in abandon as the story unfolds, often despite the lack of or different intentions. Ordinary times they ain’t though. Just like we stumble through our Covid- and government-induced deprivations, overwhelmed by drama and tragedy not of our own making, taking recourse in all kinds of mind-dulling things, alcohol for many among them, the novel’s characters have different and sometimes destructive ways of dealing with significant odds laid out against them.
The story is told in two voices, that of Cloris Waldrip, the elderly survivor, who recalls the unfolding events from the porch of her assisted living residence, now, 20 years later, in her 90s. The other view is Deb Lewis’, the ranger, a Merlot-doused wreck of a woman who nonetheless doggedly pursues a search for Cloris when all hope is abandoned by everyone else.
Most of the reviews I read seemed to agree (though I dissent) that Cloris’ retelling is the more substantive one, while Deb’s perspective is often drowned in a coterie of side characters all of whom are creatively invented and absorbing a lot of literary oxygen in their colorfulness. The author’s’ imagination is a a sight to behold, you can firmly see Curtis stomping at the bit to get yet one more funny or caustic or shocking detail into the narrative thread.
It’s interesting to see a young, male author to imbue a 70 plus-year old Christian, Texan wife with a consistent voice. There are hints at rebelliousness, and also hints at previous adventurers or strong characters in her family tree, which allows us to be persuaded that she had the guts to survive this ordeal, the crash, the loss of life, the eventual treck through the cliffs and forests, mountain lions, starvation, hypothermia, mysterious companions and all. But overall she talks and thinks like an old lady – or more precisely what a young person would think an old lady would sound like. I think one of the greatest discoveries throughout our lives is how little we change from who we were then to who we are now – when it is so often assumed by the younger set that something decidedly decrepit, or conservative, or prissy appears with age. Correct me if I’m wrong!
Deb Lewis, on the other hand, is the seemingly weak counterpart to the headstrong septuagenarian, and yet the author manages to imbue her with a sense of strength despite her vulnerability and willingness to give up on her self that shines long after you finished reading. As one of the characters in the book observes: you can never really tell who a person is, just looking at her from the window. You need to know the context, and Curtis shines in creating that context with subtlety, letting you stumble on the psychological discoveries, rather than flagging them.
In any case, I found myself engrossed in the tale, and enriched by how much goodness the author believes resides in humans even under the worst conditions. Being able to laugh, something not coming easily to me these days, was worth the read alone. He will not be on the Booker Prize list any time soon, but the talent exhibited in this first novel might very well carry the author there eventually.
Photographs are of Eucalyptus trees, found everywhere in the Bay area, with their pungent smell and bark-shedding trunks that reflect the light. Placeholders for whatever grows in the Bitterroot Mountains.