{"id":923,"date":"2013-02-21T17:07:55","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T23:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=923"},"modified":"2013-02-21T17:07:55","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T23:07:55","slug":"william-kent-krueger-ordinary-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/william-kent-krueger-ordinary-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"William Kent Krueger: Ordinary Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Krueger has long been one of my favorite writers – and he\u2019s a favorite of many of our customers as well, who are often annoyed when another Cork O\u2019Connor book doesn\u2019t appear quickly enough. From the very beginning I\u2019ve been captivated by this writer\u2019s prose and the depth of character he\u2019s is able to convey.\u00a0 And of course, he\u2019s a wonderful mystery writer, good with suspense, action, and plot twists. That\u2019s a rare enough combination that Krueger is one of the best in the contemporary mystery field.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>His new novel, which I was lucky enough to read in manuscript and raced through for a second time in the form of an advance reading copy, is one of his best books. Maybe the very best he\u2019s written.\u00a0 That is saying a lot, as other Krueger fans out there will realize.\u00a0 This delicate, sturdy, suspenseful, sensitive and amazing story will stay with you long after you\u2019ve finished the last page.<\/p>\n

While it is a mystery it\u2019s a bit different in form from the more straightforward Cork O\u2019Connor books. Set in a small town in Minnesota in 1961, it\u2019s told through the lens of a thirteen-year-old boy who doesn\u2019t quite understand the world but is starting to. Frank is part of the family of the Methodist minister in town. His father is the strong, silent type; his mother is artistic, passionate and frustrated; his little brother, Jake, who shadows Frank everywhere, stutters and keeps quiet in public; and his sister, Ariel, is the beautiful family star.\u00a0 Musically gifted, she\u2019s slated to head off to Juilliard.<\/p>\n

Taking place during one long, hot Minnesota summer, this doesn\u2019t feel like a period piece, even though it\u2019s set very much in 1961. It feels more like Frank\u2019s remembered dream of childhood, one which had terrible losses during the summer he\u2019s remembering.\u00a0 Because of the way the story is told, it takes on even more of a kind of dream-like quality.\u00a0 The book doesn\u2019t have the self-consciousness that some historical novels tend to – this is a story that happened in 1961, no other way to tell it.<\/p>\n

The story, which is simple, yet complex underneath in many ways, concerns Frank\u2019s family and, as he foreshadows early on \u00adthree deaths that held the town and Frank\u2019s family captive during that summer.\u00a0 Because Krueger has structured the book so that the central death occurs in almost the exact middle of the story, it\u2019s very much a \u201cbefore\u201d and \u201cafter\u201d book. Like the rest of the book, the structure seems simple, but the underlying psychological parts of it are very complex.<\/p>\n

Krueger has a wonderfully clear-eyed way of explicating relationships and human beings and making them feel understandable and relatable. These are people you understand – even know, but at the same time they are very specific people who live in a very specific time and place.\u00a0 That\u2019s the mark of a master storyteller, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

What makes this book memorable is that while it\u2019s about a terrible loss, it\u2019s also about the way people deal with terrible losses. There\u2019s a passage toward the end of the book – you\u2019ll know when you get to it \u00ad- that left me sobbing as well as dog-earing the pages so I could go back and read them again.\u00a0 It\u2019s that kind of transcendent moment that, as a reader, you live to discover, and I imagine, as a writer, you live to be able to convey.<\/p>\n

Buy a copy of this book for everyone and anyone that means anything to you.\u00a0 I hate to use the word special, but this book is special. I\u2019ve read it twice and am already looking forward to revisiting it a third time. If there are any better books written this year, or for several years to come, I\u2019d be very surprised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Krueger has long been one of my favorite writers – and he\u2019s a favorite of many of our customers as well, who are often annoyed when another Cork O\u2019Connor book doesn\u2019t appear quickly enough. From the very beginning I\u2019ve been captivated by this writer\u2019s prose and the depth of character he\u2019s is able to convey.\u00a0 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-psychological"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923","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=923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":925,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923\/revisions\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}