I just came from the Addison Book Club where we discussed this book. It is a coming-of-age story, a detailed character study and a murder mystery all rolled into one. The reviewer at book club could not find any negative comments from other published reviewers about this book. They all raved about it. That is rare. It won the Edgar Award — presented by the Mystery Writers of America — for Best Novel of 2013. “Ordinary Grace” is a compelling story with indelible characters. In Carolyn Haley’s review of the book in the New York Journal of Books she says “Ordinary Grace” forms a superb literary novel. It lingers in the mind long after closing the cover, and beckons one to read again for the sheer pleasure of the experience. Krueger’s prose has been described by others as ‘pitch perfect’ — a compliment hard to improve upon. He has an ear for just the right tone — whether in word, setting, sense or emotion — that makes his novels ring true.” Let’s find out more about William Kent Krueger and his novel "Ordinary Grace."
Biographical details
According to Wikipedia, Krueger has said that he wanted to be a writer from the third grade when his story "The Walking Dictionary" was praised by his teacher and parents.
He attended Stanford University, but his academic path was cut short when he came into conflict with the university's administration during student protests of spring 1970. Throughout his early life, he supported himself by logging timber, digging ditches, working in construction and being published as a freelance journalist; he never stopped writing.
He wrote short stories and sketches for many years, but it was not until the age of 40 that he finished the manuscript of his first novel, “Iron Lake.” It won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the Barry Award for Best First Novel, the Minnesota Book Award and the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award.
Krueger is married and has two children. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Writing influences
Krueger has said his favorite book is “To Kill a Mockingbird.” He grew up reading Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James T. Farrell. Most influential among these was Hemingway. In an interview for “Shots” magazine, Krueger described his admiration for Hemingway's prose:
His prose is clean, his word choice perfect, his cadence precise and powerful. He wastes nothing. In Hemingway, what's not said is often the whole point of a story. I like that idea, leaving the heart off the page so that the words, the prose itself, is the first thing to pierce you. Then the meaning comes.
As a mystery genre writer, Krueger credits Tony Hillerman and James Lee Burke as his strongest influences.
Writing process
Krueger prefers to write early in the morning. He began writing in his 30s and had to make time for writing early in the morning before going to work at the University of Minnesota. Rising at 5:30 a.m., he would go to the nearby St. Clair Broiler, where he would drink coffee and write longhand in wire-bound notebooks. In return for his loyalty, the restaurant has hosted book launches for him. At one of them, the staff wore T-shirts emblazoned with "A nice place to visit. A great place to die." The St. Clair Broiler permanently closed in the fall of 2017.
According to William Kent Krueger’s website, he said, “For several years after moving to St. Paul, we lived at the edge of a quiet neighborhood called Tangletown. (The streets were confusing and lovely.) A block away stood a café, the St. Clair Broiler, which opened its doors at 6:00 a.m. I began rising at 5:30 to hit the Broiler and spend an hour or so writing before I hustled off to a job that kept food on the table and a roof over our heads. Mostly I wrote short stories, some of which were published and a couple of which won awards. Writing longhand in cheap wire-bound notebooks in booth #4 at the Broiler became for me a part of the magic of the creative process.
The Broiler ceased operation and closed its doors long ago. Although I make my living from my writing now and don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn, I still do. I spend a couple of hours every morning in a local coffee shop, hunched over my notebook while the sun rises. For me, it’s still the most creative time of every day. Not only am I dreaming in those hours, I’m fulfilling a dream I’ve had since childhood.
According to book critic Mary Ann Grossmann’s March 23, 2013 article for Pioneer Press “William Kent Krueger embarks on another journey into the world of the stand-alone book” at twincities.com, “I knew this was going to be a risky book from the get-go,” Kent Krueger says of his luminous new novel “Ordinary Grace.”
Krueger, who lives in St. Paul, hopes readers will warm to a stand-alone book very different from his award-winning Cork O’Connor mysteries.
The adventures of O’Connor, a former sheriff and now private investigator in northern Minnesota, have won four Minnesota Book Awards, three Mystery Writers of America Anthony Awards and several regional awards.
Like many authors of books in series, Krueger wanted to stretch outside his genre. But his 2003 stand-alone, “The Devil’s Bed,” didn’t do well.
“That book was very good. It got great reviews,” Krueger recalled. “But readers stayed away because it wasn’t Cork.”
Now that a dozen O’Connor titles are in print, Krueger and his publisher are betting fans of this genial 62-year-old author will follow him to “Ordinary Grace,” which is earning rave reviews from critics and booksellers.
Description of “Ordinary Grace:” New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. The Twins were playing their debut season, ice-cold root beers were selling out at the soda counter of Halderson's Drugstore, and Hot Stuff comic books were a mainstay on every barbershop magazine rack. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.
The poignant first sentence of the novel: “All the dying that summer began with the death of a child, a boy with golden hair and thick glasses.”
Three more deaths follow, one of which changes Frank’s life.
Frank is the son of the town pastor and an artistic, frustrated mother. His sister, a musical protege, is headed for college. His little brother Jake stutters, so nobody realizes how wise he is. When the boys find a body near the river, suspicion falls on the Indian uncle of one of their friends.
Although this is not exactly a mystery, we won’t reveal why Frank feels guilty about shielding the uncle from the local cops, one of whom is a bully.
Krueger writes lyrically about Frank’s relationship with his brother, his dad and his dad’s war buddy Gus, who’s like a second father. The cast includes the town’s wealthiest man, who once loved Frank’s mother, and the man’s possibly autistic sister.
Spirituality is an integral part of all of Krueger’s books, and in “Ordinary Grace,” he explores religious belief by contrasting Pastor Drum’s faith in God with his wife’s skepticism.
Krueger says the “seed of the kind of book I wanted to write” was in his mind for more than five years.
“It took a while for the idea to settle in and come to me in a complete way,” he recalls. “The question was: Who would tell the story? I loved it when Frank’s voice came to me.”
Although “Ordinary Grace” is not autobiographical, Krueger wanted to capture the essence of small towns in Oregon and Ohio where he grew up, as well as the emotions, memories and experiences he had at 13.
“That’s such an important period of life for a boy,” Krueger says. “It’s a threshold when he’s on the cusp of leaving childhood behind but not quite ready for manhood. It’s a memorable, poignant, confusing time of life.”
He also drew on his relationships to his parents to explore how we look at our parents and how we begin to see them as real people.
“My father was a high school English teacher, and my artistic mother was frustrated in the roles of wife and mother,” he says. “Because my father was a teacher in a small town, it was easy to capture the sense of the whole town watching you. I transferred that sense to Frank, the preacher’s kid.”
Krueger says writing this novel allowed him to explore his interest in character, setting, atmosphere and language without worrying about the tight plotting necessary for mysteries.
“The first half of this novel is getting the reader to feel emotionally committed to the Drum family,” he explains. “I wanted a lazy feel, with scenes that are in and of themselves compelling.”
Krueger says the book’s title means both grace, as in a prayer, and God’s grace. It’s a theme played out during a heartbreaking scene in which Frank’s little brother changes everything by delivering a small miracle after a funeral.
Says Krueger: “I wanted to say our lives are full of simple miracles and ordinary grace.”
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