FOURTH OF JULY CREEK: SMITH HENDERSON

A first novel for Henderson, much acclaimed and rightly so.  Set in Montana, it follows Pete Snow's dreary, unsettling and ultimately fruitless attempts to minister the poor as a social worker. The novel's tragic tone do not, however, detract from the readers' enjoyment.  The protagonist, Pete Snow, wants to do what's best but everything he touches turns to disaster and grief.  He's estranged from both his wife and daughter, and spends an inordinate amount of time and care on others, seemingly the reason for his familial tragedy.  Two story lines circle Pete, his concern for Benjamin Snow, the son of Jeremiah Snow, a born again survivalist, on the lam from the perceived impending doom of modern society and, unfortunately, the law who think he's a nut intent on anti government activities.  Pete slowly gains the trust of the Snow's, brings them food and clothing since they are living off the land, and tries to get them to accept his help.  But they are too brain washed by their beliefs in God's will, their fear of the great Satan, the US government, so they distrust everyone.  We are not  sure what will happen to these two throughout the book, worry for the boy especially, and get to know and in the end admire the father.

The other story revolves around Pete's estranged daughter, Rose, who runs away from her Mom in Texas and we follow Pete from state to state, as he tries to find her, with no success. And we, as readers, are let in to her slow descent into living as a street person, then as a pimp's prostitute, as she tries to find herself, still relishing the freedom that she finds away from her family, her home, especially her father.  It's a depressing, scary look at a lost girl, only fourteen, who manages to survive albeit as a street person or prostitute.  Towards the end, Pete actually glimpses her in a Seattle neighborhood, but she runs from him, ashamed, as he gives chase, and eventually he loses sight of her but has a brief epiphany...at least she is alive, independent, and resourceful enough to survive.  And though we are not sure of the end, she intimates that she will eventually return home, once she is ready.  As for the Pearls, we find out the source of Jeremiah's angst, the deaths of his wife and children, a result of innocently ingesting a poisonous ice, which drives the wife to madness, and she shoots her children, as if ordered by God.  After this, it's hard to believe that things can end well but they do, about as well as possible, given the horrors the family has lived through.  I did read a review after writing this and Henderson's novel is compared favorably to Cormac Mc Carthy, even William Faulkner.  I might agree with Mc Carthy but Faulkner is quite a stretch.

The beauty of the novel is the way Henderson pulls us into the lives of the underclass of Montana, wrenching but also hypnotic.  We cannot put the book down or in my case,  turn the Kindle off.  It's hard to believe that people live this way but they do, some by choice, others by circumstance.  It's not a world I know which makes it all the more important for me to read.  There are nuts out there but also the needy. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the two, but we must.