Thirteen year old Leni doesn’t have the most stable of backgrounds. Her mother, who had her at age fifteen, does the best she can. Her father is a Vietnam vet who spent years in captivity and is drowning his PTSD in alcohol and harebrained get-rich-quick schemes that are invariably abandoned halfway through. It’s the 1970s; the Flower Power movement is in the last of its heyday when Leni’s father receives a letter from the father of a fallen comrade that he’ll give him his son’s old property. The property is in a remote part of Alaska. Leni’s father sees this as a fresh start and bundles up his family in their crappy Volkswagen van to take them into the wilderness and begin homesteading long before TikTok ever told him to. But it doesn’t take long for winter to kick in, and soon Leni’s father turns violent as the cold and darkness begin to take their toll.
I have certain associations with Kirstin Hannah, none of them good. I figured her books were literary equivalent of a LiveLaughLove-sign. Yes, I’m a snob. Nevertheless, when my book group picked this one as their next read, I thought it might be fun. Not everything needs to be high art, and at least the story sounded interesting. And it could have been, but the execution is just so…Flat.
‘Trite’ is the best way to describe the book. It hinges on cliches and there are so many missed opportunities that it almost feels like a deliberate choice on the author’s part, as if she knows her readers expect certain things and she wants to deliver. If that’s the case, then fine, but it doesn’t help the book.
The worst offender here, predictably, is Ernt, Leni’s father. Traumatised by his years spent in captivity, he turns to alcohol, isolates his family from the community, grows increasingly paranoid. He beats his wife and falls in love with a group of doomsday preppers. On the one hand, this is not an unexpected path for a man in his position to follow, especially in a time when Real Men didn’t go to therapy but were supposed to suffer quietly and just get over it already. On the other hand, there is nothing redeeming in him. It’s like boxes are being checked. In good hands, the story of a family trapped in the wilderness with an increasingly psychotic man could’ve been an excellent thriller. Here, it’s just frustrating.
And Leni’s budding romance with a local boy is all kinds of cliché, too, from the clumsy conversations they have as thirteen year olds to their later romance (I work with high school kids; trust me, this is not how they behave. Not even in Alaska). It’s all kinds of tired and uninspired. The conflict that arises about three quarters into the book is laughable and could’ve been easily solved in a variety of ways that the – supposedly resourceful – main characters somehow all seem to overlook. The final resolution feels like a cheap way out. Even Leni’s loving descriptions of Alaska feel perfunctory.
In fact, the entire book feels listless, as if Hannah had a checklist she needed to clear and a deadline she didn’t want to miss. It could’ve been so interesting; it’s clearly supposed to be life-affirming and inspiring, but instead we get this tepid, tired lump that thuds to the floor like a piece of clay. The fact that this scores a whopping 4.4 on Goodreads (while one of my favourite books of the year, John Banville’s Snow, scores a paltry 3.4, one of the lowest ratings I’ve ever seen) affirms my belief that Goodreads ratings are bullshit.
But hey, at least I can add another author to my AVOID list.