MN author William Kent Krueger is back on KAXE/KBXE!

You've heard William Kent Krueger many times on KAXE/KBXE talking mysteries and the writing process with Heidi Holtan. Now he's put out a new novel that isn't part of his bestselling Cork O'Connor mystery series.  It's called "Ordinary Grace" and tells the story of a young man in 1961 small town Minnesota who has to come to grips with the darker side of life. 

William Kent Krueger is a Minnesota author who has a gift for capturing place and time.  In his Cork O'Connor mysteries he captures northern Minnesota and Ojibwe and white cultures.  In his latest, he's created a stand alone story set in Minnesota in 1961.  Frank Drum is thirteen and for the first time in his life, has to face tragedy and death. 

“Once in a blue moon a book drops down on your desk that demands to be read. You pick it up and read the first page, and then the second, and you are hooked. Such a book is Ordinary Grace…This is a book that makes the reader feel better just by having been exposed to the delights of the story. It will stay with you for quite some time and you will always remember it with a smile.” (Huffington Post )

You can read an excerpt here. 

Heidi Holtan will talk with William Kent Krueger about "Ordinary Grace" coming up Wednesday April 10th at 6pm.  You can listen online at www.kaxe.org or check the archive of Heidi's Realgoodwords interviews at http://www.kaxe.org/programs/realgoodwords.aspx.

Heidi's last conversation with William Kent Krueger was about "Trickster's Point".  You can hear the Realgoodwords archived interview here! 

It was a two book weekend

I had the best time getting lost in two novels last weekend. Both had to do with the secrets of families.  Both were the kind of reading that reminded me of being a kid and taking a book with me everywhere, even in the boat on the lake.  Why I wanted to be transported from a beautiful lake in Minnesota is beyond me, but stories had way too big of a pull to keep me planted in that boat with nightcrawlers and picnic baskets of fried chicken.  Right now I'd give anything to be back on that boat.  But then?  Give me a book and I was happy!

Ellen Baker is a Minnesota writer who has just published her second novel "I Gave My Heart To Know This".  What I like about it is how in-depth Ellen goes into WWII and the roles that women had (in Superior, Wisconsin) as welders and workers while the men were off to war.  She shows these women with all their strengths and weaknesses.  And believe me, they have both of these, in spades.

"I really loved reading this powerful and poignant book, which, though it acknowledges pain, regret and remorse, ultimately is a celebration of life.” —Elizabeth Berg, author of Once Upon a Time There Was You and Open House

The other book I read "Maine" by J. Courtney Sullivan, also told the story of a complicated family.  A family shrouded in secrets.  The Kelleher's are a big clan of Irish Catholics who have never quite gotten over the death of their patriarch, Daniel.  Where once they gathered together and celebrated (with their fighting and bickering of course) now the family barely interacts with each other, even splitting the summer months up at their cabin in Maine instead of all going there together.

“Sullivan beautifully channels Alice through her memories…The dialogue sizzles as the tension between the women’s love and anger toward one another tightens…You don’t want the novel to end.” –The New York Times Book Review

 Ellen Baker is my guest this week on Realgoodwords, and J. Courtney Sullivan will be later in August. Tell me about your summer reads!

Fish or Cut Bait

Heard that phrase before?  Want to take it on as your own?  Me too. 

In some ways, Fish or Cut Bait describes this week's Realgoodwords where I talk with authors Ellen Airgood and Jim Proebstle.  Proebstle is a northern Minnesota summer resident who has published a novel based on true events "Fatal Incident".  He tells us the true life story and fictionalizes the reasonings and endings that were never uncovered before.  In 1944 there was a crash in Alaska's Mount McKinley range that killed 20 people.  The pilot, Nick, is a pilot for the Army's ATC in Alaska.  In real life, the bodies and the documents surrounding this crash were never found.  It's fascinating because Alaska was a strategic defense position against Japan as well as a lend-lease exchange location for Soviet pilots in support of Russia's war with Germany.  Mix in a possibility of a plot to steal the U.S's top secret atomic bomb designs and you have what William Kent Krueger calls "a hell of a good read".  Fish or Cut Bait here is the fortitude of the brothers who are pilots in the book, as well as the central love story that is woven throughout between Nick and Martha.  Jim Proebstle will be at the Village Bookstore in Grand Rapids on Saturday June 18th from 11-2. 

Ellen Airgood of Grand Marais, Michigan has just published her debut novel "South of Superior".  It's based loosely on the town where she lives.  I asked Ellen to tell me more about why she settled in Michigan's U.P. 

"I came here camping with my sister in the national park near by and on a rainy day we drove into Grand Marais rather than hike.  We ate lunch and I picked out what I thought was the quaintest place to eat and I ended up marrying the cook and I've been here ever since.  I married him six months after I met him which was very crazy but twenty years later here we are and we've made a very good life together here. 

But there have been a lot of challenges in so many different ways and you will find that anywhere in life I think but I just happened to find it here.  I decided at some point along time ago to fish or cut bait and to pay attention to what I had.  I found it to be really wonderful.  But I did fall abruptly in love with the place and the person and really could tear myself away.  And even in the hardest of tiems I never ever wanted to leave here.  There's something about it that's magical as well as being very real and very difficult." 

Fish or Cut Bait.  I admire it in life and I admire it in my reading.  Tune in to KAXE this week for my conversations with Jim Proebstle and Ellen Airgood.  Or check the audio archives of Realgoodwords. 

River Jordan and Juliette Fay

This week on Realgoodwords: River Jordan and "Praying for Strangers" and Juliette Fay's "Deep Down True"... about a woman facing huge change in her life, change that can sometimes send her reeling back to the feeling of middle school.