I loved The River We Remember (2023) by William Kent Krueger, which was a selection for my library book group. I didn’t have any previous knowledge of the book or the author, but I devoured it after the last line of the prologue, which describes the story as how the channel catfish in the river “came to eat Jimmy Quinn.”
Set in far southern Minnesota in 1958, Krueger tells the story of the citizens of Jewel, primarily through its sheriff, Brody Dern, a decorated WWII veteran who is in his mid-30s and unmarried, and who came back home after the war. During the Decoration Day festivities in late May, Brody is called to investigate a body in the Alabaster River, who happens to be Jimmy Quinn. Quinn is one of the wealthiest and most disliked residents of the county, who has several children, adult and teenagers, by first one wife who has died, and then a second one who is now ill, and who has a large farm with several employees.
The town is so small that Brody has only one deputy and calls on his retired predecessor when he needs additional assistance. The local coffee shop brings meals down whenever someone is in the jail long enough to need a meal. It seems idyllic, but Quinn was clearly murdered, with a large hole in his chest. As Krueger introduces the people in the town, he also reveals that each of them has a secret. And many of the white majority in the town are prejudiced against the few Native Americans that remain, and any foreigners, such as a Japanese woman who came to live with her husband in his home after he served with distinction overseas.
The character development is superb, as is the omniscient viewpoint, which gives the reader insight that the characters themselves don’t have. We don’t meet one of my favorite characters until well into the book — Charlotte “Charlie” Bauer, a retired woman lawyer who spent most of her adult years in California as a public defender, and occasionally was called to do the same in her retirement. She represents Noah Bluestone, the Native American man who is charged with Jimmy Quinn’s death.
Tied up in the story is that of teenagers Scott and Del, friends despite their different backgrounds, who make unwise choices as teenagers do, and Scott’s mother Angie, a war widow from the south, who is starting to date Sheriff Brody despite the fact that his sister in law is in love with him but won’t leave her marriage.
I noted several wise statements, including:
Very early in his life, Scott Madison had come to believe that loneliness was the normal condition of people, and he didn’t think of it, his own or that of others, as a terrible thing.
It’s a beautiful, wise, tender book that hides some ugliness at the center, and though justice was served with Quinn’s killing, it illuminates injustice as well. It’s completely free from anti-fat bias, although there weren’t really any descriptions of fat characters, I will consider it weight-neutral.
Reading While Fat 