Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner

Seth Kantner was an invited author at The Nature of Words this year. I finally got around to reading his novel Ordinary Wolves. This debut novel is set in Northern Alaska and follows Catuk Hawcly, an Alaskan-born white boy. Catuk lives with his father, brother, and sister, and they are a two-day dog sled ride from the nearest village. It was difficult at first for me to follow Catuk as a young boy.

Here’s a passage that made much more sense to me when I re-read it after finishing the book:
“It was hard to look at Enuk – or any traveler – in the eyes after seeing no people for weeks. It was hard to speak and not run and hide again. Enuk’s frost-scarred face betrayed mysteries and romantic hard times that drew a five-year-old boy with swollen dreams.” … “ The day I turned old I was going to be Enuk. Small discrepancies left footprints in my faith, such as the fact that he was Eskimo and I seemed to be staying naluaġmiu. But years lined up ahead, promising time for a cure.”

It is a coming-of- age story. When Catuk tries to live in Anchorage you really get more of a sense of him and how isolated he’s been. He physically fits in better in Anchorage, but is constantly trying to figure out people.

“I paused in coffee shops, eavesdropping, trying to emulate, acclimate, relate. I watched the caribou – the average people grazing through their days – men who griped about Tongass timber harvests while their engines idled; women with big dyed hair carrying Can’t-Grows with shaved haircuts; homeless men asking for spare change and apologizing for needing it.”

Catuk’s father is an interesting character as an artist raising three children. Catuk’s sister and brother also go through their own identity crises and adapt to where they want to be in the world. Stories of the nearby villagers and Catuk and his family are interspersed with chapters following the lives of wolves.

Here Catuk seems to hit on the main reason he’s having trouble adjusting to life anywhere:
“‘Every time I get a grip on what matters, then I’m all confused again. A white-person career, with insurance? And a Pension? Something is missing in me – that feels like being born a wolf and choosing a dog’s life.’”

It would have been interesting to hear this author speak. I’d love to hear from anyone who made it to his reading or workshop.

Escape to Books

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

I am a bit fuzzy on war dates. The last American history classes I took were in high school. They were somewhat unorthodox in that we read packets at our own pace and then took one-on-one oral tests before moving on to the next packet. You could end up way ahead depending on your motivation and then begin on the next class. I seem to remember doing 3 classes over 2 semesters or something like that. The other interesting part of these classes is that we would study all the causes leading up to a war and then skip the war. That was fine with me. I did not really want to read about war and it eliminated all that memorizing of what happened when and remembering crucial battles or turning points. We would start the history lesson up again after the war was over. This is a long way of explaining why when I began reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union I would periodically have to stop and think to myself whether a particular event really happened.

This novel is set in Alaska. It is mostly set in a portion of Alaska called the Federal District of Sitka where displaced Jewish people are living. On the surface this book seems to be a detective murder mystery. Meyer Landsman is an alcoholic, divorced homicide detective living in a seedy hotel who becomes obsessed with finding out who killed a heroin addict that also lived in the hotel. He is doing this against the backdrop of the area reverting back to Alaska in a matter of weeks and it is unclear where the millions of settlers there since 1948 will go. Here’s an example of history bending that even I caught: “Observant Jews around the world have not abandoned their hope to dwell one day in the land of Zion. But Jews have been tossed out of the joint three times now – in 586 BCE, in 70 CE and with savage finality in 1948.” (pg 17)

There are a number of interesting characters in the book. Landsdown’s cousin, Berko, who is half-Jewish and half-Tlingit, came to live with Landsdown’s family when his mother was killed in the Synagogue Riots. He is now also a policeman and Landsdown’s partner. They run into Zimbalist, the boundary maven. He works on getting around the Sabbath ban by using enough strings and poles to cover the whole district. There’s Heskel Shpilman, the rebbe of the district and the father of the dead heroin addict, Mendel Shpilman. About Mendel there are many stories of his chess abilities, healing blessings, and his possibly being the Tzaddik Ha-Dor. Landsdown broaches this idea to Mendel’s father: “If the conditions were right, if the Jews of this generation were worthy, then he might reveal himself as, uh, as Messiah.” (pg 141) This is convoluted, worthy read. There’s a mystery, a possible messiah, politics, a surreal setting, an infinite number of bad guys, and even romance of a fashion when Landsdown’s ex-wife becomes his new boss.

As a sidenote Chabon is married to Ayelet Waldman, who is author of The Big Nap among other mommy-track mysteries. Her books are decidedly lighter fare, but pretty entertaining.