Book Review of William Kent Krueger's THE RIVER WE REMEMBER

 

Krueger, William Kent The River We Remember

 

William Kent Krueger is a “sneaky” writer. He begins The River We Remember as a standalone, straightforward detective story. A man, Brody Dern, with a dark WWII past, is now a county sheriff and is called out, on what was celebrated as Decoration Day in 1958, to the site of a vicious death along the banks of the Alabaster River. The victim is Jimmy Quinn, a local man of considerable means, who has accumulated more than enough enemies over the years. The traditional questions of a murder mystery are broached. Was it suicide, was it murder, or was it a tragic accident? Then, quietly, we begin to meet some of the suspects and other people in the town. Things rapidly get  more complicated. The Alabaster River harbors dark secrets that go back through the history of the town and we begin to see how the hopes, the fears, the adolescent longings, the interlocking love affairs, the racial hatreds, and the violence of wars have impacted the lives of those who live in the ironically named farming community of Jewel, Iowa.    

Krueger writes with profound sensitivity about the scarred lives of the folks who live Jewel. His characters appear normal on the surface, but many are lost in their past secrets and sins. The narrative flows on and is continually deepened by references to both modern and ancient literature. We have lost adolescents who seem drawn out of Holden Caufield; we have lives compromised by alcohol and drugs; and we have the maimed veterans of modern wars whose lives could have easily been pulled from the pages of Homeric legend.  All of these folks now live near the quiet banks of the keynote river. The book moves you most specifically by dealing with the deep seeds of hatred toward the American Indian and the Japanese that have been planted in our history and continue to grow today in the rich soils of the USA. Each of the lives depicted leads inexorably to a violent resolution that takes you through more twists than a pretzel in distress.  

I must admit that this book caught me up. I read most of the last third in one sitting. The plot is solid and convincing, the characters seem spot on, and the overpowering inclusion of the sad history of our land puts a rich and satisfying sauce on an already well-made meal. Through it all, the Alabaster River runs with a current that sweeps all contents “from our beginning to our end.” As Kreuger says in the epilogue, there are many stories to be told and in all of them there is some truth and a “good deal of innocent misremembering.”  Separating it all out remains the ultimate challenge of living.

Jim De Young 12/11/23