Book Review: THE WAYS WE HIDE

 

There was a new novel, The Ways We Hide, by Kristina McMorris, included in my most recent published list of books read (following my review of The Education of Betsey Stockton) and I want to tell you enough about it to pique your interest in that book, as well. Regular readers of Books in Northport may recall that I was able to reconnect not long ago, through a local friend who has studied close-up sleight-of-hand for years, with someone from my graduate school days who now makes his way in the world as a professional magician. It was in part because of Mark and Larry’s fascination with the world of stage illusions that I was intrigued when an ARC of The Ways We Hide came to me in the mail from Sourcebooks, but I found added appeal in the connection to Copper Country in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

 

A traumatic event in the childhood of the main character, Fenna Vos, has outlines that will be familiar to students of Michigan history. In real life, the Italian Hall Disaster took place in Calumet in 1913, where 73 people, 59 of them children, died in a stairwell trying to escape from a building they thought was on fire. Someone had yelled “Fire!” but there was never any fire; however, the street entrance door at the bottom of the stairs was apparently locked, and children were literally buried alive. For the purposes of her novel’s timeline, McMorris places the event in a fictional town, Eden Springs (also in the U.P.), at a later date, but Fenna’s near-death experience provides clear and obvious motivation to her life-long interest in escapism – not into imaginary worlds (say, through literature) but out of actual physical containers. 

 

The novel’s hair-raising opening scene, however, takes place onstage in 1942 Brooklyn. Young adult Fenna and her partner are performers, and she who appears to the audience as a mere “assistant” is in fact the designer of the containers and escape mechanisms, as well as the instructor of Charles, the apparent Houdini who makes the onstage escapes. What happens in that particular performance unexpectedly takes Fenna far from Brooklyn to behind-the-scenes war work in World War II England with M19. Here again, as was true of the Christmas Eve fire, Fenna’s story involves actual wartime projects little known to the public even today. 

 

I knew about the Italian Hall in Calumet, but not all the other facts-behind-the-fiction in this novel. In fact, as I was reading, I was impressed with how many lifelike events the author created, not realizing how many she had drawn from history. The writing never seems didactic or overloaded with too many dates or details: The story is always front and center. 

 

Fenna has an indissoluble bond with Arie, with whom she survived the Christmas Eve event deadly to so many other children that night. Then there is Charles, her stage partner, who disappears early in the saga but reappears later. Major Hutton, an Englishman who recruits her to work in British intelligence, is based on an actual historical person. Through her experiences with these and other people in her life and unexpected twists and turns along the way – things not always being what they appear -- Fenna gradually grows in self-knowledge and strength.

 

Who will want to read this book? Those who enjoy history and/or historical fiction and/or love stories and/or intrigue and suspense and/or stage illusions, as well as anyone who simply wants to be pulled into another world and time. 

 

The good news is that The Ways We Hide will be issued in frugal, affordable paperback when released; the “bad” news is that the release date isn’t until September 6. But remember, delayed gratification builds character!  

 

The Ways We Hide

by Kristina McMorris

Sourcebooks, September 2022

Paper, 496pp

$16.99

Michigan Country Village Life in the "Old Days"

To my grandsons,

BILLY AND JERRY,

and to my granddaughters,

MARY JANE, SUSAN, AND JUDITH,

who can never know the joys of country living,

this book is tenderly dedicated

Millbrook was published in 1938 by Little, Brown and Company of Boston. Its author was Della T. Lutes. Born in 1872, Lutes tells in Millbrook the story of childhood as she knew it, growing up in a small southern Michigan country village outside Jackson, Michigan. 

The town of Millbrook was on a north-south railway line and also on the turnpike running east-west between Chicago and Detroit. It boasted two churches, Methodist and Universalist, and one resident atheist, a hired man who worked on a farm on the edge of town. There was a school, of course, drygoods store, meat market, drugstore, barber shop, blacksmith shop, and one tavern. The depot, of course. Small as the town was, however, only men might loiter on Main Street.

...Women and girls, in that day, didn’t loiter along the street – even little girls. If you had business at the stores, you transacted it speedily and left. If an errand led you along Main Street, you went decorously past all public institutions, -- even including Lyde Peters’s notion store, where news was dispensed as well as necessities, -- your eyes frozen to the path your feet must follow.

Imagine, then, the curiosity of a little girl newly moved to town from the country, with a new town friend her own age! And imagine the embarrassment of the two little girls when Cory’s new, wild and brash sister-in-law from Detroit leads them not into one store after another but actually into the barbershop!

We hung back. In our most curious moments we had never dreamed of entering the barbershop. Women never went into the barbershop. It was a rendezvous for men – sacred to their masculine needs.

But headstrong Clara knew no restraint, natural or inculcated by family. Why ever had William married her? And why had she married a farmer, when she hated farm smells and the unexciting life of the country? No one could understand it!

Delly and Cory learn about life by hanging quietly on the edges of adult conversation whenever they can avoid being noticed. Perpetual debate over the character of Quint Sharp, the Atheist, for instance, enlivened many a gathering of village women. Was he a danger to himself and others or a better man than many a nominal Christian? Opinion differed. Sex came into local gossip only rarely, but when it did –

My mother drew back, shocked, startled, dismayed, mingled fear and disgust on her face. 

“Hush!” she said sharply. “Can’t you see Delly’s here?” 

Clara looked at me, surprised, evidently quite unaware of my presence up to now.  

 “Well,” she said, rather sullenly, “she’ll hear of it.”

When Della Lutes was young “Delly,” there were no automobiles, not even bicycles or telephones, and yet news traveled around town fast.

About the middle of March, a postcard came from Gaby to Adelaide, addressed from Chicago, Lyde Peters [the postmistress] read it first and went out on the street and told every man in sight. Nell [Lyde’s daughter] threw a shawl over her head and ran to the drugstore to tell Ed Calkins. Ed said if Nell would go over and get Freda to come and tend the store he’d take the card right out to Adelaide. And by the time Adelaide had got her card the whole town knew its contents by heart.

Unlike citified Clara, Della and Cory found excitement plentiful in Millbrook. Spelling bees, pageants, picnics, visits from relatives, haying time, and the county fair were high points, but simple walks together and visits to neighbors provided interest enough for ordinary days. Berry-picking and meals were reliable pleasures. Della’s father took great pride in his strawberries, the best in town (though not quite up to those he had raised before on his larger farm). Chicken was the only thing to serve company, even though everyone had poultry of their own, and Thanksgiving wasn’t Thanksgiving without turkey, any more than dinner in general was dinner without pie for dessert.

The story of Millbrook opens with a description of the village (also given in visual form as map endpapers to which a reader can refer), and Lutes recounts the way she and her mother would sit out on the front stoop in the evening, looking down a gentle slope to the town to watch the lights come on, naming the houses as the lamps were lit.

Then, “That’s Miz’ Babcock’s,” we would say as the house on the corner mellowed with light. “There’s Adelaide’s” -- happily, as if a distant hand had waved a greeting.

Joy is mixed with sorrow and anxiety in Millbrook, as everywhere. There is William’s unseemly and unaccountable marriage to the dreadful Clara, when everyone expected him to marry Jenny Myers, the blacksmith’s daughter, with whom he had “kept company” nearly all his life. Even happy events produce a bit of tension, as when Della’s maternal grandmother comes from Detroit for what seems almost a state visit. But the shocking news that Nell Peters has been “knocked up” and is claiming Gabey Reed is her baby’s father sets the whole town on its ears. Gabey’s leaving town suddenly is the next shock. When an old woman is murdered with an axe by the young man she has taken in and formally adopted, it seems the last straw.

Nobody had died except old folks and nobody had got married unless maybe one or two couples that had just got married and nothing to it. There hadn’t even been any special visitors to anybody’s house for a long time. The town had just run along like any country town and then all of a sudden everything happened at once.

A reader is drawn in gradually to the life of the town and its families, eagerly following all these exciting developments as the memoir almost seems to turn into a novel, and yet it is the quiet tenor of the life of that period that remains the foreground. Work in the fields, a night hawk swooping at dusk, grass cut with a scythe, biscuits and gravy and mashed potatoes, fresh berry jam, all kinds of pickles, and picnics with real cloths spread on plank tables improvised for the occasion – sights and sounds and aromas and tastes are all here, lovingly remembered and recounted. The women sit and sew and talk –

... in their tight-fitting basques with many buttons, their full long skirts protected by full white aprons, their high-topped shoes, their ruches, brooches, breast pins, and thin old-fashioned wedding rings ...

and over and over, in chapter after chapter, Gran’ma Reed mourns the disappearance of her husband Gab’erl’s “Ledger,” in which he wrote every day’s happenings on their farm, beginning with the old log house built in 1835.

How will it all end? Well, of course it won’t, it didn’t, and it doesn’t. Generations of the families go on, and the land remains, despite changes wrought upon it. But what a gift it is, to have these memories of Della Lutes written down and published to allow us to visit life in lower Michigan over a hundred years ago!

Bookseller’s postscript: The morning I wrote this I also did a load of wash and hung it out on the line, cut rhubarb, watered plants, and hauled brush from major tree pruning my husband and I had undertaken the preceding evening. We have electricity, a telephone, cars (too many--don't ask!), and my business is in the village, but we live continue to live a country life, and for that I am deeply grateful – and never more so than on a calm, sunny, green and lovely morning in June.

Dawn and Katie Inspired Us

My blogger friend Dawn and her sheltie princess were on a camping adventure when they stopped by the bookstore on Tuesday. How does Katie manage to look perfectly groomed on a camping trip? My little tomboy Sarah doesn’t stay groomed for as long as an hour! But the adventure part of their visit rang bells for me as I launched into a welcome day off on Wednesday. My goal for the day was – not to have any goals and not to set myself anything to accomplish.

I love a quiet, rainy morning, wherever I am and whatever the day holds, the sounds and smells of rain, peaceful drizzle or dramatic downpour, taking me back to dreamy days of childhood. And so, not bothering about raindrops, Sarah and I began our outdoor adventure on familiar ground, near home, where lovely long views over orchards to dunes and lake competed for my attention with roadside weeds.

There is always something to see on our neighborhood roads. But we did not stop there for long.

Stop! Then GO!

Did I have a book with me on our expedition? Yes, of course! Superior Land and the Story of Grand Marais, Michigan, by Karen A. Brzys, went very well with an apple bratwurst sandwich from Bunting’s Market in Cedar. What a great job Karen has done with this book! I love the way she begins the history of the Upper Peninsula with the glaciers – not surprising, I suppose, coming from the Agate Lady.

And the rain cleared away -- .

After picnic lunch in the middle of the county, I was able to gratify a long-held wish to photograph old St. Joseph’s on Bohemian Road, bright white against clouds and blue sky.

School Lake warranted a brief stop, but without a boat there wasn’t a lot of exploring we could do around its shoreline, so it was on west on Bohemian Road and across M-22, headed toward Lake Michigan. We did not go to the beach – another time -- but family will recognize these near-Lake scenes, and everyone should be able to recognize the absence of crowds. I love my quiet places!

Inviting two-track

Miniature landscape with hint of fall at center

Horsemint in knapweed with bracken background

Horsemint closeup

Ghosts of raindrops

Bracken shadow

Orienting Shot #1

Orienting Shot #2

Days of adventure can be tiring, but they are well worth the energy, as are busy summer bookstore days. My only complaint is that all the days go much too fast....

Water flowing toward the Big Lake, where all will merge

Guest Blogger: December Report from Thailand

Thailand Report

John Mitchell

When my wife Ann Marie and I left Leelanau nearly three weeks ago, I was suffering from an extreme case of sensory underload, bouncing off the walls of our spacious Omena home as if it were a six-by-nine-foot prison cell. We were heading for Bangkok, Thailand, where eight months ago our youngest son Drew landed a job as an English teacher in one of the country’s best universities. I was praying for an adventure vacation, one that would stimulate and recharge my imagination before settling into a winter of writing. As the old saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for.”

On the morning of December 2^nd, the lead story in the Bangkok Post read: “Parts of inner Bangkok were yesterday plunged into chaos as anti-government protesters tried to seize key state offices but faced strong resistance from police. Protesters tried to seize the offices since the morning but by evening had still not pushed through the barriers erected by police, who fired tear gas and water cannon. ”

For three years, while writing my most recent book, Grand Traverse The Civil War Era, I studied the escalating violence that led to catastrophic war in mid-19^th century America, and I followed this work with my regular Civil War column in the Leelanau Enterprise; however, it is one thing to document a civil war in the distant past, quite another to face civil unrest live and halfway around the world from home.

The scenario here in Thailand seems altogether surreal. We are thoroughly enjoying the beautiful and historic country of Thailand and the proud and friendly people who have embraced my son and given him meaningful work. The pace and crush of humanity in Bangkok makes New York City seem tranquil, but I have yet to see a single scrap of paper or spray of graffiti anywhere on the metro system. Dare I mention that the night/day temperatures ranges from 70 to 85 degrees, the ancient temples and palaces are inspiring, the food is outstanding, and the daily, hour-long massages Ann Marie and I are enjoying cost only $6 to $9? But the potential gravity of the situation struck home when Drew, who had been downplaying the downward spiral of events, accepted an envelope I handed him containing Thai baht and US dollars, just in case.  

Ongoing Thai newspaper editorials addressing the country’s comparatively new experiment in democracy often refer to our 237-year-old nation as the world’s best example of government by the people, where unpopular leaders lose elections but are not overthrown. Though we are certainly suffering through a terribly divisive time back in the States, almost all of us accept the concept of change through the ballot box rather than the mob. I hoped that sentiment would prevail here in Thailand, too.

On December 3, Ann Marie and I both flew out of Bangkok, she on her scheduled day-long fight back home, I to the northern city of Chiang Mai to pursue leads on a story I am writing and to attend a noted Thai cooking school. Before she left, Ann Marie transferred enough money to Drew’s credit card should he need to book a flight to join me in Chiang Mai -- again, just in case.

I spent most of the day preparing for an interview with 86-year-old Thai art collector James E. Bogle, an American who stayed on in Bangkok after his service in the Korean War and built a distinguished career as a Southeast Asia city planner.  Bogle is one of the last surviving friends of another American expatriate named Jim Thompson, a hero in Thailand, who is credited with rebuilding the country’s silk industry after World War II. Thompson’s mysterious disappearance in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia in 1967 is still unsolved, and my three-hour conversation with Bogle shed light on that event, which I’ll cover in my upcoming book of nonfiction short stories.

I didn’t catch the news until late that evening, by which time the tide of events in Thailand had turned for the better.  The police had torn down their own barriers and welcomed the demonstrators into various government compounds, instantly diffusing the escalating violence. There were pictures of demonstrators and police laughing, embracing, and sharing tea together.  As the lead story in the December 4^th Bangkok Post explained:

The upcoming celebrations for His Majesty the King’s birthday are behind the Metropolitan Police Bureau’s decision to allow anti-government into their headquarters and Government House. The military asked the government to allow protesters inside as a symbolic gesture to end the violence. 

The military was keen to avoid clashes during the King’s birthday tomorrow. Police Lt. General Kamronwit said he had been summoned for an audience with a royal family member at the palace. He was told Thais must not fight each other.

The long-serving King is revered in Thailand, wielding influence of the kind George Washington would have if he were to reappear in the present and ask Americans to behave in a certain way. Drew told us a story of a friend visiting from the States who dropped a coin on a busy sidewalk, and as it began to roll away on its edge, stomped on it with his foot in order to stop it. Thais who witnessed the scene gasped in horror and disbelief, for one side of the coin featured a bust of the King.

Fathers Day in Thailand is a moveable feast pegged to the King’s birthday, which is today, December 5^th.  My Fathers Day present this year is the truce and at least a day of peace on the streets and the knowledge my son won’t be compelled by events to join me today in Chiang Mai.

As I advance in age, I sometimes have fleeting doubts as to whether the fortune I have spent on travel over a lifetime would have been better put aside for retirement, but just as quickly I answer myself, “No way.” If my last words turn out to be “paper or plastic,” so be it, for every time I experience other countries and their distinct cultures I am awed by the beauty and diversity of our world. Never has that been truer than on this rollercoaster ride of a month-long- trip to Thailand. As a bonus, the more I see of the world, the more I am convinced there is no better place on the planet to live than Leelanau County, Michigan, USA.

- John Mitchell, 12/5/2013

[John Mitchell's most recent book is a best-selling northern Michigan work of history, Grand Traverse: The Civil War Era.]

Sending You Elsewhere

Not in all senses. I do hope you’ll stop by the bookstore if you’re nearby, because we have a beautiful new book of poetry at Dog Ears by a Traverse City* writer who will be part of this year’s summer author series at the Leelanau Township Library. Come by and pick up a copy of Embroidering the Ground With Prayer, by Teresa J. Scollon. No, what I mean by “sending you elsewhere” is that today’s post will be full of links, and here’s the first, about Teresa’s latest recognition, an NEA grant.

Next is the Michigan Notable Books award list for 2012, which includes several authors who have visited Dog Ears Books. Which ones? Take a look and see!

Another award to a Northport author came from the Independent Publishers (IPPY) to John Mitchell, Silver Medal winner in the category “Great Lakes – Best Regional Nonfiction,”  for Grand Traverse, the Civil War Era. See complete list of winners here.

You’ve all heard by now of the death of Maurice Sendak. This is my favorite tribute to him, of the many that are flying around.

Finally, here’s a video that’s worth taking the time to watch, both for the singer’s beautiful voice and for her original lyrics. Laughter guaranteed.

*This is a correction from my original statement identifying the poet's home as Suttons Bay. She teaches at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) in Traverse City and lives there.

History on Waukazoo Street!

It was an uncanny coincidence. Only Wednesday morning I had received e-mail from a friend with a Ph.D. in history who had reached page 195 of John Mitchell’s book, Grand Traverse: The Civil War Era and was overflowing with praise for the work. Then that very afternoon John called to see how I felt about having him come in to do a couple of book signings before the holidays. Yes, by all means!

If you look at the calendar in my right-hand column (where I am now directing your attention), you will see two different days you’ll be able to catch Mitchell at Dog Ears Books. The first chance will be the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which is also Merchants’ Open House day in Northport (and something like Shop Small Business nation-wide) when John will be with us from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. That same day from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. we’ll have Children’s Story Hour, as we did last year at this time, and the village Christmas tree lights will go on at five o’clock.

(There are fliers around town with a full list of special activities around town for November 26. I have some at the bookstore.)

It was our friend Dr. Kenneth Wylie, formerly of Michigan State University, who said of John’s book--

Grand Traverse: The Civil War Era (as I believe you suggested) is far more than a local history. I consider it superior to most leaden memorials to a particular regional or regimental history of the Civil War. John has dredged the abundant sources in anthropology (as far as the local Amerindians), into social and economic patterns, daily life and moreys. Like any trained historian, he manages to cobble the paths throught he greater story (death and mayhem in war) via an intricate tracing back through the core story, how did the diarirst (missionary) Smithsee it all; More important, John shares a popular historian's gift of narrative.

Ken has high standards, so this is high praise. But then, the book has already won a state history award, too.

Those of you who won’t be Up North until December will still have a chance to meet John and have him inscribe a book especially for you or someone on your holiday gift list, as he will make a return visit on the Friday before Christmas, December 23, again from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Far Corners of Home

Kamloops. The name won’t leave my head, and I can’t help pronouncing it aloud every few minutes. (Try it. It's very satisfying to say aloud.) Sarah can’t figure what I’m talking about. David hasn’t asked—yet. The Kamloops on my mind has nothing to do with British Columbia. No, it was a ship—and is, still, a shipwreck. The 1923-built ‘Kamloops’ went down in 1927 off the coast of Isle Royale, and it’s on my mind because I just finished Nevada Barr’s A Superior Death. (What a story!) And now, ever so slightly obsessed with Nevada Barr, I was intrigued to find her on a website of Mississippi writers, although she was born in Nevada and grew up in California. Since she lived a while in Mississippi...also in New York...and currently lives in New Orleans, by the unwritten rules of bookselling this makes her a Nevada writer, California writer, Mississippi writer, and Louisiana writer, at the very least. (Whether or not New York booksellers claim her as belonging to the Big Apple, I know not. NYC is its own universe.) How many states, after all, claim Hemingway as one of their own? Illinois (birthplace) and Michigan (family summer home) are among the number but hardly form an exhaustive list.

In my bookstore, Dog Ears Books, as in others I know in northern Michigan, there is a section called “Michigan.” All my used and out-of-print Michigan fiction is there, followed by used and OP nonfiction—history, natural history, memoir, essays, etc. On the bookshelves holding new books, there is also a section for books Michigan.

Deciding what counts as a Michigan book is a little more straightforward than identifying Michigan authors. A Superior Death takes place on Isle Royale in Lake Superior within the boundaries of the state of Michigan. The story is clearly set in Michigan. If a Michigan historian wrote a history of Georgia, I would shelve that book in Southern history and travel. (I collapsed travel and history sections some years back, frustrated by such questions as, “Do you have any books on China?” and the confusing directions involved in the answers.) But on the Michigan fiction shelves there are always, besides stories set in Michigan, others set elsewhere but written by Michigan writers--for example, Alaskan Gold Rush adventure stories by James B. Hendryx of Suttons Bay and James Oliver Curwood of Owosso and Western literary fiction by Jim Harrison.

Now that I’ve been immersed—submerged—in Michigan fiction for a couple of days, I've turned back to The Honey Trail, by Australian travel writer Grace Pundyk, where, in the chapter on Borneo, I’ve just traveled five hours upriver to an isolated, roadless river village. I’m not in Michigan any more—until I put down the book and walk outdoors again.