The Great Alone , by bestselling author Kristin Hannah, was the first
selection in our new neighborhood book club. The Great Alone is a nickname for Alaska, and the novel's description intrigued me, so
I eagerly started reading.
His problems started before the war, though; at 25, he got involved with Leni’s mother, Cora, who was only 16. She got pregnant, and he should have been put in prison for statutory rape.
Cora is a simpering weakling who
takes her abusive husband back time after time, naively believing his promises
that he “will never do it again.” While this is an accurate portrayal of
battered woman syndrome and younger readers will definitely be shocked by the
lack of help the law offered women in the 1970s, it’s hard to have sympathy for
Cora when her daughter suffers the consequences of her poor role modeling and
this violent man.
When Ernt inherits a homestead in
Alaska from a war buddy who was killed, he decides he wants to leave
civilization and live off the grid. He drags his wife and daughter to a dilapidated
cabin with no running water, heat, or electricity, and where Cora and Leni have
to be constantly vigilant against attacks from bears and wolves.
The nearby “town” has few people and a
one-room schoolhouse. In Ernt’s zeal to be far
from society, the idea of there
being a school for Leni to attend didn’t even cross his mind. Neither of these
adults is likeable. While they can do what they want, they seem oblivious to
the fact that they are condemning their child to live in a place where she has
no opportunity or future.
If I hadn’t been reading this
book for the book club, I would have quit after Chapter One. I had to force
myself to plod on. Around page 250, I was surprised to see the plot finally
kick in. Then I couldn’t put the book down. The first 250 pages could have been
condensed into 50-75 to keep the story moving. The problem with the last 200,
though, is that the real plot is rushed. What was in these pages should have
been the entire book but stretched out and expanded. I’m not sure why the
editors at St. Martin’s Press didn’t see this.
While the author’s
writing is very visual, the descriptions of Alaska’s desolation are well done, and
the state certainly seems to have unparalleled beauty, Hannah’s constant
intrusion into the story was annoying. Her frequent asides in parentheses to
the readers should have been edited out. Example: “Leni got out of the plane
carefully (nothing was more dangerous up here than getting wet in the winter).”
Also, when
reading the narrative portions, it often seemed we were in the author’s head
and not in a character’s. The viewpoint of Leni as a 13-year-old is that of an
adult—again, the author. Leni knows names of trees, plants, and places that are
not yet part of her experience, and she can tell the ages of adults (that one
looks 40 and that one looks 50), which no child that young could do. These
adults would just be “old.”
Also, there was
repeated dialogue—one character saying the exact same unusual phrasing of words
that a previous character had said (again an editing problem)—and changes of
viewpoint that appeared very late in the story and weren’t really necessary.
I do have to say that the ending
is satisfying and worth getting to, but as I mentioned, the story moves in a
slow, boring, and aggravating manner for those first 250 pages and then speeds
through the real meat. If you are looking for a story that hooks you from the
first page, this one falls far short of the mark.