BOOK REVIEW: Homestead by Melinda Moustakis

I grew up on The Little House books and then read them again with my daughter. So now, even knowing that the history of the pioneers is a lot more complex than is portrayed from the white settler viewpoint, and that the rugged individualist mythos has morphed into something both dangerous and pathetic in the modern era – nevertheless, there is still something compelling about a well-told, human-against-nature narrative. A pioneer story.

But now throw into the mix a man with a whole lot of emotional baggage. And make the setting 1950s Alaska instead of the mid-1800s, and you have Homestead by Melinda Moustakis. This literary historical novel is superb.

Lawrence is a 27-year-old Korean War veteran with survivor’s guilt. Also, he was raised in crushing poverty, so that left scars. Farming is what he knows. So after he returned home from the war, he set out for Alaska Territory to lay claim to 150 acres. He has to build a cabin and grow 20 acres of a crop to earn his deed to the land. He wants a wife and a whole brood of children. He wants something to call his.

Marie is a young Texan with a flighty mother, an embittered grandmother, no father, and an older sister, Sheila, who practically raised her. When Sheila moves to Anchorage with her husband, Marie follows her, determined not to be trapped into a Texas marriage to suit her grandmother. Marie wants a place to belong.

They meet one night in a bar, exchanging very few words. They have one date the following day. And then, they are married. Now, they have to discover who they have married and if it was a mistake.

It is a hard life. Isolated. Cold. Poor. Dangerous. But the hardest part is building a relationship when there is very little communication and very little reason to trust.

The prose is lush when describing the landscape. It is spare when portraying emotions – yet the emotions are deeply felt. While the plot is fairly simple and the pace leisurely, the story is utterly gripping.