{"id":2261,"date":"2017-05-26T13:06:22","date_gmt":"2017-05-26T20:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=2261"},"modified":"2017-05-26T13:06:22","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T20:06:22","slug":"karen-dionne-the-marsh-kings-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/karen-dionne-the-marsh-kings-daughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Karen Dionne: The Marsh King’s Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Every once in a while you read a book that\u2019s so good, you can\u2019t look up until you finish, and it\u2019s so clear and specific and moving that you know it\u2019s the book the author was meant to write. This novel, set in Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula, is indelible in every way: setting, story and character. Dionne frames her novel with Hans Christian Anderson\u2019s tale The Marsh King\u2019s Daughter<\/em>, and opens with a woman named Helena relating, in first person, that she\u2019s a kidnapping survivor.<\/p>\n

The scenario seems all too tragically familiar \u2013 Jaycee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart, even the movie, Room<\/em> \u2013 but as Dionne fleshes it out it becomes very much her own story. Helena is the product of an abduction. She grew up in a remote area of the UP in a tiny cabin with only her mother and father. As it\u2019s the only life she knows, it takes her a long time to puzzle out quite what\u2019s wrong about it.<\/p>\n

But flash forward to when Helena is a grown, married woman with two daughters of her own, and she learns that her father, the \u201cMarsh King\u201d of the title, has escaped from prison. When the cops show up on her doorstep at the same time as her husband, who has no idea of Helena\u2019s backstory, his first impulse is to get the girls in the car and get out of dodge. Helena refuses to go with him \u2013 this is her quest, but she fears she\u2019s lost her husband forever. Trust is not a concept she\u2019s familiar with, and as the story evolves, it\u2019s clear why that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n

The story weaves together the past and the present, so we learn of Helena\u2019s childhood where her mild mother was very much a background figure to the devotion and kinship of Helena and her father as he teaches her to hunt and survive in a remote area with no running water, electricity, or any means of communication. Everything the tiny family has is a product of their hard work, from the leather Helena\u2019s mother softens and makes into gloves and hats to the snowshoes made by Helena\u2019s father. Helena\u2019s only frame of reference for the world are an old stack of National<\/em> Geographics.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the present she\u2019s hunting her father in the wilderness they both know so well, and it\u2019s clear that while he\u2019s an expert woodsman, so is she, thanks to his training. They are lethal equals, and Helena\u2019s task is made more urgent when she starts finding bodies.<\/p>\n

In the past, while the young Helena clearly loves her father and loves the things he teaches her, she\u2019s also subjected to beatings and punishments (being locked in a well, for example) and her mother is basically being raped every night, with Helena being a product of a rape. These things are only clear to Helena as she gets older, however \u2013 when she is a young girl she holds her mother in contempt.<\/p>\n

This story could be set nowhere else but the UP, and Dionne is an amazingly evocative and vivid writer describing her setting. While I grew up in Michigan and spent my summers \u201cup north,\u201d entering the UP always felt like I was going to a different country, and Dionne is expert in portraying that feeling.<\/p>\n

As Helena grows older and becomes ready, naturally, for the next phase of her life, her growing rebellion and strength makes her father angry and leads to a showdown. As the two of them in the present race toward one another for another show down, it puts this intimate story on an almost epic scale. Everything about this novel is perfect: the writing, which is not too flowery but is memorable and clear; the characters \u2013 Helena and her parents will stay in my mind for a very long time; the vivid setting, and finally, the story that doesn\u2019t let up. If there\u2019s a better novel written this year I would be very surprised. Don\u2019t miss it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every once in a while you read a book that\u2019s so good, you can\u2019t look up until you finish, and it\u2019s so clear and specific and moving that you know it\u2019s the book the author was meant to write. This novel, set in Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula, is indelible in every way: setting, story and character. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15,13],"class_list":["post-2261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-michigan","tag-suspensethriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2263,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions\/2263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}