The Lighthouse Road - Peter Geye

So like, I kind of love historical fiction. Maybe not quite as much as I love a good, weird, speculative fiction, but still a whole damn lot. I'll read the story of Henry Tudor and Anne Boleyn in a million different iterations from a million different authors (and I have), no problem. But I really enjoy exploring the different parts of the world in different eras, too. It's not really so different from science fiction or fantasy, when you think about it: there are some similarities between the world of the story and our own, but there are a lot of differences too, and well-written historical fiction allows the reader to escape into that world just as much as a good fantasy novel does.

The Lighthouse Road (not to be confused with 16 Lighthouse Road, a fluffy Macomber book that Google seems to think I mean) is set in Minnesota in the late 19th and early 20th century, on the shores of Lake Superior. Peter Geye sets up a dual storyline of Thea, a young Norwegian woman immigrating to America and going to work at a logging camp in the tiny town of Gunflint; and her son Odd, raised by the village after her death, and his affair with Rebekah, a much older woman who helped deliver him. Their stories parallel in a lot of ways, centering on dangerous relationships and trying to find one's own way and one's happiness in a harsh world.

I actually read this book for a class, but of the books that were assigned, this really was my favorite. The other books we read were poetry, and Geye's writing, by contrast, is very simple and straightforward. I found it really interesting how he could use some very physical, relatively simple sentences, and use them to create poetry in images. There's a lot of images from this book that really stick with me: Odd going out onto the lake to pick up whiskey from smugglers; Odd finding the postcards of Rebekah for the first time; Rebekah falling into her deep moods when their baby is born in their tenement in Duluth. I guess I like the contrast of using straight prose to create poetic images without getting flowery.

I guess there's just not a ton for me to say on this one: it's well-written and I enjoyed it, but there's not enough in it to really make me wax poetic about its virtues. Nothing to really nitpick either. Definitely a decent read, I just don't know if I'd go out of my way to find it.

No quotes today, because I already gave the book to my mom. Oops!

Overall: 4 stars

Amazon: The Lighthouse Road

More reviews: The Lighthouse Road on Librarything (Average 4.09 stars)

The Lighthouse Road on Goodreads (Average 3.60 stars)