This Tender Land, by William Kent Krueger

 

Characters
Lincoln Indian Training School	People met along the journey
Odie O’Banion – alias Buck Jones Albert O’Banion Moses Washington – couldn’t speak Emmy Frost   Thelma and Clyde Brickman Herman Volz – carpentry shop and boy’s advisor Vincent DeMarco – staff, abused students, died by falling into quarry Cora Frost – homemaking skills, Emmy her daughter, killed by tornado   Hector Bledsoe – farmer, boys worked in hay field   Albert Seifert – local banker, scout master, transferred for refusing to foreclose on farms   Billy Red Sleeve – disappeared, body found in quarry	Abigail – girl at clothesline, Odie took clothes and left money   Jack – one eyed “pig scarer” – forced boys to work, kept Emmy in house, shot dead by Odie   Forrest “Hawk Flies at Night” – Sioux Indian, discovered Emmy could talk Sioux   Sword of Gideon Healing Crusade Sister Eve – gave people hope Sid – trumpet player and business manager Dimitri – cook Whisker – piano player Lucifer – rattlesnake   Hooverville Powell Schofield Sarah – wife Alice Beal – mother Children – Marybeth, Lester and Lydia Captain Bok Gray   Saint Paul Gertie Hellmann – told would offer help Flo – waitress, partner Wooster Morgan – boat storage and repair shop Truman Waters – Flo’s brother, towboat Kids – John Kelly (Shlomo Goldstein), Mook, Chili One-eyed Jack – met at post office   Saint Louis Aunt Julia – Odie’s mother Dolores Sword of Gideon Healing Crusade

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from paperback edition.

1.       Did this book give you any insight into how American Indians were treated?  What were your thoughts about the Lincoln Indian Trading School?  Later on in the novel, when they were on the road, Odie reflected that at least they had beds, a roof over their heads and  somewhat regular food.

2.       What did you think the story was behind Jack, the pig scarer, Sophie and Angel?  What about the bed in the attic that was slashed and destroyed?

3.       Did you think Sister Eve was real or a hoax?   What did she think and how did she justify what Sid did, paying off the people who had been previously healed?

4.       Discuss Emmy and her “fits”.   It seems like she knows or senses things during the episodes.   For example, when the group decided to stay with the revival for a while and they went to tell Emmy, she had been sleeping and when they woke her, she said “I knew that” (page 204).  Also, after they had found the Indian skeleton, she woke up from an episode and said, “They’re dead.  They’re all dead…I couldn’t help them, I tried but I couldn’t.  It was already done” (page 292).   They found out later that 38 were killed there.  How did she know this?  

5.       Sister Eve told Odie that Emmy was able to see into the future and make slight changes.   That is why Odie did not fall all the way into the quarry but was stopped by an outcropping, the bullet missed Jack’s heart by an inch, and Albert was able to stay alive long enough for the snake serum to arrive and save him.  These three things were all related to Odie and averted a tragedy.  How important was this to the story? 

6.       Mose was very quiet and withdrawn after finding and visiting the Indian graveyard.  Odie realized he had no family to remember.  When Sister Eve told each of them what they were seeking, she told Mose that he “was looking for who he was” (page 271).  Sister Eve also told him that his Sioux name was “Amdacha…Broken to Pieces” (page 271).  How did Sister Eve know this?  How did this information help us understand Mose?

7.       Why did Odie give all of their money to the Scholfields?  He felt “that giving Mr. Schofield that money had felt so good, so intoxicating, that if I’d had enough, I would have done my best to save them all” (page 316).  Why didn’t he think of his brother and friends and how much they needed the money? 

8.       When one-eyed Jack ran into Odie at the post office in Saint Paul, he told Odie that he had saved him.  He had quit drinking and found and reunited with Aggie and Sophie.   Did you want more information about this part of the story?

9.       Did the like the ending – how everything was wrapped up in the Epilogue? Did you have any questions left unanswered?

10.   Which were your favorite characters in the story?  What did you like best about them?  Aside from the Brickman’s and DeMarco, were there any villains?

11.   Did you like the last paragraph where Odie, as the narrator, writes, “Some of what I’ve told you is true and some…well, let’s just call it the bloom on the rosebush.”  He ended, “Far better, I believe to be like children and open ourselves to every beautiful possibility, for there is nothing our hearts scan imagine that is not so” (page 444).  What was your favorite part of the story?  What did you want to be true or possible?  Upon reflection, did this change how you thought about the novel and the story?