Inland

Finished June 26

Inland by Téa Obreht

This historical novel follows two characters in the late 19th century in the United States. Lurie has some memories of when he and his father were on a ship, running from something in his father's past. He knows from things his father said, that he was from Turkey, but he doesn't know what drove him to leave. He knows his father's name was Hadziosman Djuriƈ, although the landlady in the house they lived in made it Hodge Lurie when the hearse took him away. Lurie lived with her a while, doing chores, until she hit harder times and sold him to the Coachman, the man who collected the dead. Later, he was sent west with other boys, and worked for a man that ran a mercantile. As Lurie's life unfolds, one thing becomes clear: he can hear the dead that aren't at rest. From men he helped the Coachman collect, to a friend that dies from illness, he begins to understand what he is hearing. In the Midwest, where he now lives, he hears many voices, of the indigenous people, settlers good and bad, and many others. He becomes a man who makes his way by chance and wit, and spends a long time with a camel section of a military group. 

The other main character is Nora Lark, a wife and mother who lives with her family on a small plot in the Arizona Territory. 1893 is a drought year that followed other drought years, and Nora's husband Emmett left to go for water days ago. Her two older sons, Rob and Dolan, have now gone out after him, leaving Nora with her elderly mother-in-law who doesn't speak and has limited mobility, her youngest son Toby, who was injured in the eye, and a serving girl Josie. Josie, like Lurie, senses connections to the dead, and Nora finds this both fascinating and annoying and doesn't know whether to believe her or not. Of late, Josie and Toby have been claiming they see a monster near the property. 

As we gradually see the two stories connecting, we see the reality of life for people at the time, struggling to survive amid threats both human and nature. Emmett Lark owns a printing press and ran a local newspaper in town, but he hasn't been that willing to go against the political force that is in the process of both making their town less prosperous and denying a recent widow her property. Nora is a fighter that is impulsive and this has made her more willing to fight, and less able to see the consequences until they are upon her. 

The writing is beautiful and often speaks to larger truths. At one point Lurie says to a companion "The longer I live, Burke, the more I have come to understand that extraordinary people are eroded by their worries while the useless are carried ever forward by their delusions." There is a haunting quality to the novel, and I often had trouble putting it down. 

A definite literary gem.