September 2010

It's back-to-school time in Fort Simmer, Northwest Territories, and Larry's starting first grade. He's got this low-grade anxiety going: "I need to watch my back. I'm Indian." Larry belongs to the Dogrib nation, and navigating school means navigating all that comes with it.

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Sunday morning, I'm back in Vincennes. Sun's playing hide and seek, wind's brutal. First event: panel on "Indigenous Voices" with Joseph Boyden, Richard van Camp, and Louise Erdrich. Big letdown: Erdrich's a no-show. Still, the conversation's worth it.

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For one weekend, Vincennes became the North American capital. Writers from the US, Mexico, Canada, Cuba, Haiti—all here. Including some authors who've blown my mind over the years. I went in ready to geek out.

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Back to Wyoming where winter's hitting hard. Durant's sheriff Walt Longmire just escaped a blizzard and buried his friend Vonnie. Now there's a new case. This time it's his old friend, former boss, and retired sheriff who needs help.

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Kingsolver's one of those writers I wait for with actual hunger. I almost bought this in English first, then switched to French to avoid missing any nuance. I need every word this woman writes, and I need it clean.

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In "The Origin of Violence," Humbert dissected power dynamics in concentration camps. Now he's looking at another kind of violence—the kind that happens when money becomes god and people become disposable.

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Green Talbot was born in the quaint little town of Tranquillity, where nothing ever happens. His dad's the forest keeper, and that mysterious wood pulls at Green from day one. Because Green Talbot has a gift—a strange, unsettling one.

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Stephanos runs a small grocery in a working-class DC neighborhood. Every Thursday night, his old buddies Joseph and Kenneth come by. All three fled Africa—war, poverty, the usual horrors—looking for something better in America.

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For forty years, Bastien Lhermine's been the caretaker at a Jesuit college. He's secretive, solitary. Then Rose Sèvère moves into his building with her kid Paul, and slowly, he lets them in. Rose sees something in him worth knowing.

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This month the book club focused on Nobel Prize winners. Turned out I had five on my pile. Went with one of the lesser-known ones. Knut Hamsun doesn't get talked about much anymore, but this novel hits different when you're actually hungry.

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