The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

"In the vast expanse of this unpredictable wilderness, you will either become your best self and flourish, or you will run away, screaming, from the dark and the cold and the hardship. There is no middle ground, no safe place; not here, in the Great Alone."
            -Lenora Allbright Walker, from the novel

I loved The Nightingale by this author and it was a highly-rated selection for our Page Turners group. Since I had seen The Great Alone on the Bestseller list some time ago and knew it was set in Alaska, a favorite place to visit, I wanted to read it. When I spotted it on the New Fiction shelves at the library, it almost jumped into my hands.

Beginning in 1974 the story centers around the Allbright family---parents Ernt and Cora and daughter Leni, told in third person, but mostly from Leni's perspective, starting as a young teen. Leni's coming-of-age story is told in the midst of family dysfunction caused by Vietnam vet and former POW Ernt's apparent PTSD which was not very well recognized or treated in the '70s. Early in the novel Ernt inherits land in Alaska and decides to relocate the family to "live off the grid." Cora agrees, thinking her troubled husband will be happier there and for a while he is. The move turns out to be both blessing and curse.

I am always curious about the significance of book titles. I learned the term "Great Alone" came from "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" by Robert Service. (excerpt follows)

Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,

And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;

With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,

A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;

I was familiar with "The Cremation of Sam McGee" by Robert Service but didn't realize he is known as the Bard of the Yukon.

Some of the setting seemed familiar to me. The first time I traveled to Alaska, a friend and I visited with some folks who had been pioneers in the '70s so much of this story rang true.

Among the themes of The Great Alone are domestic abuse, unconditional love and survival. I thought it was an excellent read---a page-turner---although much of the plot was not exactly enjoyable. I will rate the book a 4+. Not as good as The Nightingale. Just saying....

Page Turners' Favorites 2018

Page Turners’ Favorites for 2018, our 10^th Year

NR          A Promised Life, Elizabeth Paige Maxwell McRight                                             November

4.1          The Horse Dancer, JoJo Moyes                                                                                April

4.0          Glory Over Everything, Kathleen Grissom                                                             February

3.7          A House Without Windows, Nadia Hashimi                                                          September

3.4          Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly                                                                    January

3.4          Little Women, Louisa May Alcott                                                                             June

3.4          Redemption Road, John Hart                                                                                    July

3.3          The Japanese Lover, Isabel Allende                                                                          May

3.1          Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation, Cokie Roberts         March

3.0          My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Fredrik Backman             August

3.0          The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead                                                     October

A Promised Life by Elizabeth Paige Maxwell McRight

"I know that I speak for the Board when I express deep appreciation of your contribution to the life of the Mission and the Church in India. Many of the tasks that you have carried out have been of the type which are arduous without giving much evidence of reward. Nevertheless, you have performed them willing and well. It is our prayer that God may continue to bless you, enriching your last months of service in India and giving you more years of usefulness to the Church both in India and in America subsequent to your retirement."                
                     -Dr. Reed of the Foreign Mission Office, to Robert Maxwell upon announcement of his retirement, 1941

The Page Turners selected this book for November because it was written by one of our members, a special friend, and was newly released. The book is essentially the biography of "Robert Maxwell: Missionary to the Punjab  1900-1942" (a subtitle), who was the author's grandfather. Paige has said that she intended the book to be not just a family memoir but a history of the period from the Civil War through WWII as experienced by one family, a family very much involved in God's work.

Robert Maxwell's story begins before he was born when his father, a Union prisoner in a Confederate camp, promised God if he made it out alive he would educate a son for the ministry. So Chapter 1 is "George Small Maxwell's Vow"and the final Chapter 11 is "A Promise Kept." Everything in between describes events that happened in the process of the promise keeping---and you can probably imagine it was not all a bed of roses!

Author, Paige McRight, is a retired Presbyterian minister, the daughter AND granddaughter of ministers. The apple did not fall far from the tree! When a sizable collection of Maxwell's letters were found by Paige's cousin, the question arose: What should we do with them? This book was the answer and what an amazing undertaking it was, taking 7 years to complete! I am quite sure Robert Maxwell and Paige's father, Pollock, are both smiling down on her accomplishment.

Through the reading of the book I thought often of the missionaries our church has supported with prayers and monetary support and love. Thankfully those were available to Robert and his wife, Maud, in their mission work, as well.  The obstacles they faced were different than today's, yet even now there are many difficulties to overcome in the mission field. I think only very strong, faithful, dedicated people can succeed.

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When Page Turners met to discuss A Promised Life, the author, of course, was in attendance! Our policy is not to rate a book when the author is present. Normally for our discussions we use questions found online from the publisher and this book is too new for that so each attendee was asked to bring a question or two. This made for a very interesting discussion that enhanced our understanding of the book. Folks wanted to know if any family of her generation became ministers other than herself and when  she knew she wanted to follow in the footsteps of her father and grandfather. We learned that Paige's grandfather died 3 days after she was born and grandmother Maud lived 10 years after that. Apparently Maud was a strong, assertive woman and Paige admits she was referred to as Little Maud by her family, at times. We were awed that Robert's father promised him to the ministry and he never seemed to question the path laid out for him or to waver in his resolve. We couldn't help but wonder how likely (or unlikely)  such a thing would be today.

I thought a map might have helped me since I did not know the area of India/Pakistan so well and someone else thought a family tree would have been an excellent addition to the book. I wondered about the exclusion of captions with photographs but had failed to notice the subjects of the photos are listed at the end of the book on page 145. Several of us thought the inclusion of historical events gave us better perspective of the times and enhanced the story. I think we all agreed that Paige had taken on a HUGE project and done an outstanding job!

'Tis by Frank McCourt

"When I look at the framed book jackets on the wall at the Lion's Head Bar I suffer with envy. Will I ever be up there? The writers travel the land, signing books, appearing on television talk shows. There are parties and women and romance everywhere. People listen. No one listens to teachers. They are pitied for their sad salaries."
              -Frank McCourt, from the memoir 'Tis

The reading of this book was pure joy for me! I enjoyed it almost as much as Angela's Ashes so my rating is 5. Frank McCourt is suddenly one of my favorite authors.

When I mentioned to the Page Turners how much I had loved Angela's Ashes, someone asked if I had read 'Tis, a continuation of McCourt's life story in which he becomes a teacher. Since I am a retired teacher, I immediately put it on my "Must Read" list!

As a young man, Frank McCourt returns to New York, the place of his birth, from Ireland where he has spent his formative years. He had long dreamed of his return but finds it is not quite the promised land he had envisioned. Though he yearns for an education, he works many blue collar jobs and joins the army for a time, where he learns some useful skills. He is finally admitted to NYU even without a high school diploma. When he is able to acquire a teaching job, he finds himself questioning his choice of profession as well as his ability. In college he has shown a flair for writing and the dream of becoming an author grows more intense, as reflected in the quote above.

McCourt has certainly led a very interesting life, with a mixture of family loyalty and dysfunction, humor and sadness, so he has many stories to relate. Some tugging on the heart strings and other tickling the funny bone with his Irish humor. I love his practical and unpretentious prose; he doesn't even use quotation marks in his dialogue.

I will certainly read all of McCourt's work eventually but I am sad to find out he died in 2009. He left a fine legacy!

The Whole Truth by David Baldacci

"...PM stands for perception management. It's the way to manufacture the truth, on a large scale. The Department of Defense has it more precisely defined in some manual or other. The military really got into PM in a big way after the Vietnam War. I did a story years ago on the subject. Or at least I tried to do a story. A few people were speculating that PM firms were behind some of what happened in Persian Gulfs One and Two. WMDs, embedded reporters buying the company line, stuff like that. They have all sorts of methods and devices to do it. The best PM firms have taken it to a high art."
                         - Katie James, from the novel

I haven't read a Baldacci novel for a while and with its short chapters, fast-paced action and gripping plot, I found this one a real page-turner.  I got into the story quickly and easily because Shaw was working in places I had recently visited---Amsterdam and Dublin. 

Protagonist Shaw is an effective operative for a highly secretive international law enforcement agency (think James Bond) looking into mysterious efforts to stir up global conflict which could ultimately lead to WWIII! Yikes!

Add to the mix one Katie James, a relentless journalist in search of the truth. At her peril, she ends up working with Shaw. The quote above, where Katie is explaining PM---perception management--the efforts of certain firms to manufacture a "truth" and then sell it to the multitudes is an ongoing problem and provides much of the plot. Though The Whole Truth has a copyright date of 2008, I kept thinking it is so like today when people in high places often lie and then accuse the ones who report facts of spreading "fake news." Dick Pender, head of the PM firm hired by antagonist Nicolas Creel, says "Why waste time trying to discover the truth when you can so easily create it?" He admitted what he did best was "selling the truth to a gullible world." Pender's perception management in the novel is like fake news on steroids!

The Whole Truth was very entertaining but I found it a little scary to think a war might start over false perceptions. I am rating the novel a 4.