Three Winners

As it gained speed and howled through tinder dry forests it fanned the many existing small fires into an inferno that came to be known as the Big Burn.  

After meticulous research, Egan wrote what reads like a firsthand account of the fire that destroyed three million acres of forest, Wild West mining towns, timber camps, isolated family cabins.  The fire claimed the lives of idealistic young forest rangers, immigrants, drunks, convicts, men who barely knew how to hold an axe, all who tried to try to control what turned into a roaring wall of flame.

The Forest Service was five years old.  Teddy Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, and John Muir were the spearheads of a seminal change. New words and concepts: conservation, public lands, national parks, had just come into existence.  As always, the progressive view of helping the many slammed into the greed of the few.  The robber barons were used to old growth timber for the taking.  How, as a result of a catastrophic fire, Americans came to view forests as something worth conserving for all citizens, is the second subject of the book.

As the book ends (2009), environmentalists (a still newer word) are rethinking the role of fire and how to live with it. That we have a very long way to go is evidenced by the many wildfires and heavy smoke throughout the country these last few years, including the disaster of Lahaina. Our book group couldn’t have found a more timely read.

On the way home, the girls, tired from a day out, stop to help someone who has injured his ankle, and are not seen again.  These opening stories of sudden unexpected loss make up the thread that weaves together the chapters of Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips. 

The setting, the Kamchatka peninsula, is on the eastern edge of Russia.   Taking her cue from the location, Phillips writes a book with overtones of a Russian novel including a large cast of characters, each with several names.  Some, white, are city dwellers; while others, darker, represent the indigenous tribes of the North, some of whom are still reindeer herders. The suspicion and disdain, on both sides, between light and dark skin peoples is familiar despite the foreign location.  One group represents modernity with its freedom and possibilities but loneliness; the other, tradition with its security and comfort but rigidity.  The clashes between the two groups and two ways of life are among the major themes of the book.

Although the novel starts as a mystery, it is so much more. Each chapter is a beautiful independent story of a woman coping with loss or change.  One loses a second husband on the same date she had lost her first; another, left by a philandering husband, falls apart when her dog disappears; a teenager is heartbroken when she learns online that she has been dropped by her best friend; a college student learning traditional dance chooses between her village fiancé and someone new.   All are affected by the abduction of the two children; for some it magnifies personal loss; for others it stirs deep seated fears.

At the end, the mystery returns to the fore, and the various threads are brought together in a terrific suspenseful conclusion.  What a great story!

Fifteen years ago, a young archeology student went missing after a field trip to Neolithic flint mines.  When Ruth ascertains that the bones belong to her, Nelson interviews her former tutor, with whom she had a “special” relationship; their good friend Cathbad, the Druid wizard and responsible friend and father; four other graduate students now grown and successful, all of whom who had been on the outing with her.

This good mystery is full of allusions to archeological sites in Norfolk, ancient myths and ritual.  Balancing this is the levelheaded approach of Nelson’s staff who work to discover who murdered the young woman.

The plot is good; the setting better; but it is the relationships among the characters that make up the best part. Families in all their variations find ways to make things work.  Single mother Ruth who recently discovered a half-sister; Ruth’s daughter’s father Nelson, who is married with three other children; police officer Judy whose partner is the spiritually seeking Cathbad; ambitious Tanya who lives with her wife; all form a tight group who support each other through harrowing disappearances, and the still present hand of Covid.  

There is Arby’s French-fry-flavored vodka, Oreo Thins wine, Hellmann’s mayo-nog, and the Velveeta martini.  Hmmm. Not a fan? Maybe a good book would help.