Men. Hunting. Way Up North

Hunter’s Moon     Philip Caputo     (2019)

In seven linked short stories, Philip Caputo summons up the wild allure of the far northern regions of the United States. Six of the seven stories take place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which hovers around the 46th parallel of latitude, and the seventh is set even farther north, in Alaska. Hunting and fishing are the prime attractions of Caputo’s settings. Each story revolves in some way around these outdoor sports: the appeal of rugged terrain, the terror of getting lost, and (yes) the reality of weapons violence.

I don’t hunt, and I don’t understand the technicalities of rifles, but as you read Hunter’s Moon you can set those components aside and revel in Caputo’s descriptions of the natural world, like these: 

• “The sky lightens from the gray of old asphalt to oyster and snuffs out the stars one by one until all are hidden in a canopy of brilliant blue. A hoarfrost glitters on the brown bracken fern matting the clearing across which the white pine’s shadow lies like a fallen spear.” (61)

• “This is a silence never broken by humanity’s clatter; it is layered, dense, virgin, alien—a disquieting quiet, if you will. All the otherness of the natural world is in it—a world complete unto itself, independent of man’s endeavor’s and conflicts, his plans, schemes, joys, griefs, his egoistic certainty that he is a child of God.” (133)

You can move past the brief scenes of violence in Hunter’s Moon, but you can’t escape Caputo’s exploration of distressing aspects of male experience. Characters include military veterans who suffer PTSD from combat and fathers and sons who have fraught relationships. Here’s one father, speaking about his son, who is on a hunting trip in Alaska after having been expelled from college: 

• “Being a male of the old school, the kind who prefers back slaps to bro hugs, I would welcome a mood of active aggressiveness, an air-clearing, spleen-blowing flight, albeit one that doesn’t turn physical. . . I’m a fifty-six-year-old Russian literature professor who hasn’t been in a scrap since I was his age, and maybe younger.” (113)

One particular character, Will Treadwell, appears in five of the seven stories and lends a unifying presence as he transitions from owning a small-town bar and craft brewery into retirement. Only one female character, appearing in two of the seven stories, has a substantial role, but I’m okay with that. Caputo’s understanding of his male characters is deep and rich. And, along with the best nature writers, he captures the very feel of those remote northern forests.   

For similar themes and settings, read my reviews of Susan Bernhard’s Winter Loon, Leif Enger’s Virgil Wander, and Nickolas Butler’s The Hearts of Men.

Miracles in MN and ND

Peace Like a River     Leif Enger     (2001)

Most of the religions of the world have in their histories or traditions the working of miracles, perhaps because humans want to believe that the usual unrelenting laws of the universe can sometimes be subverted. Peace Like a River is a book about miracles, but novelist Leif Enger doesn’t proselytize. Right up front, on page 3, his narrator, Reuben Land, writes, “Here’s what I saw. Here’s how it went. Make of it what you will.”

Reuben is an eleven-year-old asthmatic boy living in rural Minnesota with his younger sister (Swede), his older brother (Davy), and his father (Jeremiah, the one who performs the miracles) in the year 1962. After their small town’s two bullies engage in an escalating series of episodes of battering and vandalism, Davy strikes back and ends up in jail. When Davy’s trial seems to be going against him, he escapes, managing to evade both officers of the law and a civilian posse. His family sets off to find him, figuring that he might be hiding out in the rugged Badlands of the neighboring state of North Dakota. The family encounters several distinctive characters on their quest, and the story—after taking turns toward love, fear, hope, and loss—builds to a shocking conclusion.

This forward-driving narrative line alone would be sufficient to keep the interest of many readers, but Enger adds much more. Jeremiah’s miracles, some of which might be odd coincidences, appear when they’re least expected, as the family’s road trip to the Badlands takes on qualities of the movie O Brother, Where Art Thou? Reuben is an unpretentious first-person storyteller who inspires reader confidence in his truthfulness, and his version of 1962 is accurate without feeling forced. His language can be rich: “Once in my life I knew a grief so hard I could actually hear it inside, scraping at the lining of my stomach, an audible ache, dredging with hooks as rivers are dredged when someone’s been missing too long.” (54) He frequently includes galloping verse, based on the lore of the Old West, which he presents as written by Swede, who is unusual in both her name and her precocity.

I sought out Peace Like a River, Leif Enger’s debut novel, after placing his most recent offering, Virgil Wander, on my Favorite Reads of 2018 list. Enger’s prose style has developed in seventeen years, but his writing was already powerful in 2001, and if you’re familiar with the Upper Midwest, you may feel an extra zing. For the record, you don’t  have to believe in miracles to love this novel.