Book Clubbing: The Magic of Nebraska
The Magician’s Assistant, a 1997 novel by Ann Patchett, provoked a rich and layered discussion in my book club. We enjoyed the lyrical flowing style of a tale that might seem, if you only repeat the bare plot details, melodramatic and forced. Sabine who has lived all her life in Los Angeles is the widow of Parsifal, a recently deceased gay magician. Finding upon his death that her beloved husband had kept the story of his birth and early youth a deep secret, she journeys to his childhood home in Alliance Nebraska to discover her husband’s birth family and true story. In the course of her visit, Sabine learns as much about herself as Parsifal. Among the many dualities of the novel, one that intrigued me was the contrast of sophisticated, urbane west coast L.A. and small town, heartland Alliance, Nebraska. It brings to mind the journey of small town, Dorothy to the great City of Oz – only in The Magician’s Assistant, the trip is in reverse. It is the adult, sophisticated, cultured Sabine who files by plane (not balloon) to a small town in the Midwest, to find truth and reconciliation. And I wondered what other tales feature Nebraska.
Probably the earliest great American novelist who has written about Nebraska is Willa Cather (1873-1947). She was the first woman inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. Born in Virginia, Cather moved with her family to Nebraska as a child and for a number of years lived in the small frontier town of Red Cloud. She later attended the University of Nebraska. Nebraska was the inspiration of her prairie trilogy: O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Ántonia (1918). O Pioneers and My Ántonia are tales of immigrants making their way on the Nebraska frontier. Rebecca West writes: “The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us. Willa Cather, perhaps more than any other American writer, was able to re-create the real drama of the pioneers, capturing for later generations a time, a place, and a spirit that has become part of our national heritage.”
Only a few years younger than Cather, Bess Streeter Aldrich (1881-1954) is one of the earliest and most popular Nebraskan authors who chronicled the life of Nebraskan pioneers. She is particularly known for her 1935 novel Spring Came on Forever – a story that follows two Nebraska pioneer families from early settlement into the 1930s. Considered her masterpiece: “an old-fashioned love story, touching and poignant. It is also much more. It details the settlement, growth and development of the state of Nebraska, presenting human beings rejoicing in birth and grieving in death. A story of two families whose lives are mysteriously intertwined, the book depicts courage in times of natural disasters, drought and flood, as well as economic difficulties in the Great Depression.”—Kliatt
Moving deeper into the 20th century, Jim Harrison has written a number of tales set in the Nebraskan Sand Hills, a mixed-grass prairie region that covers over a quarter of the state. His 1988 novel Dalva is set in the rural Sand Hills and tells of a Nebraskan woman’s quest to find her illegitimate son given up for adoption many years ago. The story weaves together Nebraska frontier history and the experiences of its Native Americans. Dalva and its sequel The Road Home (1998) have been called an epic of the American Midwest.
On a lighter note, we have Timothy Schaffert’s 2005 novel The singing and dancing daughters of God. Set in small town Nebraska, this family drama was described by Publisher’s Weekly as a story of “achy-breaky dysfunction” that “drives a messy, funny family drama … told in a winning faux-naïve style”. Book clubbers note: there is an online reading guide available.
Probably the earliest great American novelist who has written about Nebraska is Willa Cather (1873-1947). She was the first woman inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. Born in Virginia, Cather moved with her family to Nebraska as a child and for a number of years lived in the small frontier town of Red Cloud. She later attended the University of Nebraska. Nebraska was the inspiration of her prairie trilogy: O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Ántonia (1918). O Pioneers and My Ántonia are tales of immigrants making their way on the Nebraska frontier. Rebecca West writes: “The most sensuous of writers, Willa Cather builds her imagined world almost as solidly as our five senses build the universe around us. Willa Cather, perhaps more than any other American writer, was able to re-create the real drama of the pioneers, capturing for later generations a time, a place, and a spirit that has become part of our national heritage.”
Only a few years younger than Cather, Bess Streeter Aldrich (1881-1954) is one of the earliest and most popular Nebraskan authors who chronicled the life of Nebraskan pioneers. She is particularly known for her 1935 novel Spring Came on Forever – a story that follows two Nebraska pioneer families from early settlement into the 1930s. Considered her masterpiece: “an old-fashioned love story, touching and poignant. It is also much more. It details the settlement, growth and development of the state of Nebraska, presenting human beings rejoicing in birth and grieving in death. A story of two families whose lives are mysteriously intertwined, the book depicts courage in times of natural disasters, drought and flood, as well as economic difficulties in the Great Depression.”—Kliatt
Moving deeper into the 20th century, Jim Harrison has written a number of tales set in the Nebraskan Sand Hills, a mixed-grass prairie region that covers over a quarter of the state. His 1988 novel Dalva is set in the rural Sand Hills and tells of a Nebraskan woman’s quest to find her illegitimate son given up for adoption many years ago. The story weaves together Nebraska frontier history and the experiences of its Native Americans. Dalva and its sequel The Road Home (1998) have been called an epic of the American Midwest.
On a lighter note, we have Timothy Schaffert’s 2005 novel The singing and dancing daughters of God. Set in small town Nebraska, this family drama was described by Publisher’s Weekly as a story of “achy-breaky dysfunction” that “drives a messy, funny family drama … told in a winning faux-naïve style”. Book clubbers note: there is an online reading guide available. 
Perhaps it is only fitting, that we end again with something about the Sand Hills with Richard Power’s National Book award winning novel (2006) The Echo Maker. One wintery night, a young man driving on a road outside of Kearney, Nebraska, near the Platte River, has a near fatal car accident and suffers traumatic head injury and memory loss. The only witnesses seem to be migrating Sand Hill cranes flocked along the river valley. Native Americans named these cranes “echo makers” because of their echoing, sonorous calls. How the accident really occurred, the reaction of friends and family, the interaction of man and nature, issues of identity – all are interwoven in this intriguing novel. And the reader might wonder in what sense, the Nebraska landscape functions as a character in this story.
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