Legacies

My father passed away recently. He had an idiosyncratic and formidable personality that is hard to capture in words. In some ways, we were worlds apart. But one thing we had in common was a love of books and writing. My dad was rarely seen without a book, often a doorstop-size biography of a president or a chronicle of the second world war. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say he probably read five thousand books in his lifetime.

He also was a prolific writer, completing over ten projects, everything from memoir to thrillers. I had a chance recently to read three of them.

In this work of literary fiction, a young man, Eldon, is hired to replace a teacher who has abruptly quit mid-term. He discovers that the school director is thinking of stepping down and that a senior teacher expects to be the replacement. There is a lot of local color about the parents at the school, including two who are having an affair and one who takes a fancy to Eldon.

I enjoyed this book. There is a nice sense of the characters’ core values and the small town they live in. I can imagine that my dad’s many teaching experiences may have inspired Eldon. What is a greater curiosity are his insights into the divorced mothers at the school. What inspired this? I can only speculate.

2.

This was my dad’s traditionally published novel, and in some ways it captures his essence. A teenager from St. Louis, Dave, is hired for a summer to work at a lake resort in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. There, he discovers that his new bosses are searching for missing ransom money that was lost in a D.B. Cooper-style hijacking. They have brought Dave in because they need to keep their efforts quiet.

This is the classic innocence-to-experience story as Dave realizes he’s being used and finds a way to get involved. He makes a friend in an aging military pilot and together they form a counter mission.

There is a lot of nice detail about the area. My dad was an outdoorsman who spent time in this area, and there is a ring of authenticity to the action sequences and nature descriptions. I liked the ending, too.

3.

In this work of literary fiction, a widower named Carl Bilden agrees to meet his son, Jordie, in Jerusalem for Christmas. Thirty years before, Carl and his wife Cora spent a year in nearby Amman and Jordie is curious to see the place where he was born.

The narrative flashes back to 1967 when Carl and a pregnant Cora have arrived in Amman. They are befriended by another teacher and his wife who live next door.

There is a good sense of setting. Bedoin families camp near the Bildens’ flat, stealing water from their hose. Carl navigates the hectic traffic to visit his favorite grocery store, where he is greeted with a cup of coffee and a chocolate. (If you knew my dad, he would have loved such a place.)

What is interesting are the parallel plots of Bob, Carl’s teacher friend, and Jordie. These are composite characters, and yet there is a distinct feeling that this is autobiographical and reflects my dad’s evolving views.

This is one of the pleasures of reading these books: in addition to the literary conventions and entertaining stories, occasionally bits of my dad peak out, like rays of light through a billowy cloud. His perspective and values are preserved in his writing.