Thursday, November 30, 2017


Post # 9

Quote for the Day: The Renaissance Center "Mayor Young's first brainchild and a paean to the parsimony of late-twentieth-century architecture, standing like a display of disposable plastic drinking cups."  Loren Estleman. King of the Corner, 1992.



Reviews


The Man in the Crocked Hat
by Harry Dolan

When this Ann Arbor author's first book, "Bad Things Happen," was published he was hailed as one of the new generation's masters of the mystery form. With each succeeding book it seems certain that Harry Dolan is destined to be included among the ranks of  Michael Connelly, Dennis LaHane, John Grissom, Robert Crais, and et al. This newest addictive page turner will only solidify his position.

The author introduces a new hero in a hopefully new series featuring ex Detroit Police Detective Jack Pellum. The ex cop's life was shattered 18 months prior to the opening of the book by the murder of his wife in a Huron-Clinton Metro Park.  It seemed to be a random killing with no motive and less clues. After more than a year its become a cold case in the police department but not for Jack. He quits the police and spends his days looking for his wife's killer and pesters his old police partner to search this or that imaginary lead. 

Pellum's one slim clue is that he saw a man in a crooked hat lingering around their house a day or two before his wife's murder. In eighteen months of asking questions he's unearthed bubkus. His old partner is tried of Jack's fixation and reluctantly agrees to give him one last line of inquiry. A writer in Detroit committed suicide and his suicide note appeared to be the first page of the dead man's only published book. It lay open to page one in the room in which he hung himself and the first sentence of the book begins, "The man in the crooked hat..."


Pellum is off and running, tracking down everything he can find about the writer's life and if there is a posssible connection to the man in the crooked hat. Pellum's new burst of inquiries  sets off a chain of chaos much like a ball launched in a pinball machine and and then trying to keep track of every bumper it hits and why. Pellum blindly keeps digging away until seemingly insignificant clues slowly uncover the secrets in a small town that have been buried for twenty years. The plot has stunning unexpected turns and twists and even includes informal walking tours of some Detroit neighborhoods. The Jack Pellum character is fascinating as he struggles with his compulsion to find the killer of his wife and at the same time grows to understand at some point he can still grieve but he must also move forward in life.

Harry Dolan is a very good mystery novelist writing at the top of his form. Effortless prose jumps off the page and goes down like rum-spiked eggnog on New Year's Eve. Its smooth, full bodied, and comes with a punch.



Dolan, Harry. The Man in the Crooked Hat, G,P. Putnam's, 2017, 353p. $27




Lake Effect: A Deckhand's Journey on the Great Lakes
by Richard Hill

If you live in Michigan chances are you've caught sight of the huge ore carriers plying the Great Lakes, probably more than once, and tried to imagine what life is like as a sailor on one of the great boats. Well give your imagination a rest and read Richard Hill's memoir of his 10-year career as a Great Lake sailor in the 1970s. It is a vivid and fascinating account of life and work on North America's great fresh water seas.

The author takes much of the romance out of the job but doesn't make it any less interesting. When not not docking or departing port a deckhand spends days on end chipping and painting. When a deckhand doesn't have a paint brush in hand he's usually performing some other on board maintenance. The boat becomes the sailor's home, workplace, and entertainment center and on average makes port every four or five days.  After a few weeks the crew longs for almost any kind of break from the the everyday routine even if it is just a few hours ashore tipping back a beer with a buddy in rough, dockside dive. Hill mentions Peckerhead Kate's and Horseface Mary's, both in Chicago, as two of the toughest bars during his time on the Lakes. I can't help but wonder what a t-shirt from either place might have looked like.

The book is filled with fascinating little tidbits of  life on the inland seas. When the ore boat is emptying its holds of taconite a Caterpillar is lowered into the holds to scrape up the last of the  iron pellets. A first-time sailor quickly learns never walk the decks with his hands in his pockets because an ore boat's decks are both slippery and filled with things to trip over. So your hands always have to be ready to grab a rail and save yourself from falling overboard.  

Life boat drills were performed weekly but sailors felt life jackets just prolonged one's suffering if you went in the water. In November and December Lake Superior gets so cold just hitting the water means instant death by either cardiac arrest or thermal shock. It was only decades later that crews were supplied with survival suits if their boat was going down. 

The first time Hill's boat encountered 25-foot waves on Lake Superior was both frightening and spellbinding. He writes his, "600-foot boat was nothing but a helpless tin bucket tossing around in a tempest." On the other hand he claims that the deck of an ore carrier on a beautiful day out of sight of land was the best golf driving range one could ask for. 

The book provides a rare glimpse into a life that can be as close at hand as a ore boat steaming down the St. Clair River yet is totally unknown to more than 99% of us. 



Hill, Richard. Lake Effect: A Deckhand's Journey on the Great Lakes Freighters, Gale Force Press, 217p., 2008. $17.95



Michigan Books for Christmas Giving


The following are my humble suggestions for books about the Michigan experience that would make good Christmas gifts. The list is compiled on the principle that no matter how old the book, if a person hasn't read it is is still essentially new. So the following list includes both new books on Michigan as well as classics. For ease of order all one has to do is click on the book cover and it will take you to Amazon Books where the price is probably less than the posted price on the list.


The Legend of Sleeping Bear by Kathy-Jo Wargin, Gilsbert van Frankenhyzen, illustrator.
Sleeping Bear Press, 1999, $17.95

The beautifully illustrated and gently told legend of  how Sleeping Bear Dunes got its name. Long ago a mother bear and her cubs tried to swim across Lake Michigan. The mother bear made it and now rests on shore and waits forever for her two cubs, represented by North and South Manitou Island to come ashore. Moving and lovingly told. Reading level is 4.8, but the book begs to be read aloud. Named the Official Children's Book of Michigan.




Trout Magic by Robert Traver. Touchstone Press, 1989, $12.54

A classic book of essays about the demented fringe of fishermen (me included) who pursue trout with a fly rod. Written by a former Michigan Supreme Court Justice who left the court to spend more time fishing and writing, this is a creel full of tall tales, weird characters, wit, and wisdom. It is also chocked full of great descriptive passages of the U.P. wilderness and the joys of wading a beautiful river.  Reading this book almost feels as good as having a hungry Brook Trout strike your Royal Coachman.




Michigan at Antietam: The Wolverines State's Sacrifice on America's Bloodiest Day, by Jack Dempsey. The History Press, 2015, $24.95


A profusely illustrated, compelling narrative that explores the important role Michiganders played in the single bloodiest day of the Civil War. This should be must reading for any Michigan Civil War buff.





Sweet Girl, by Travis Mulhauser. HarperCollins, 2016, $15.95

A sharp, taut, thriller set in Emmett County in which 16-year-old Percy, sets out a stormy night to find her meth addicted mother who has been missing for days. Percy's first stop is the meth dealer's house deep in the back country of Emmet County.  Mom's not there and the dealer and his girlfriend are passed out on the living room floor. In searching the house for her mother Percy discovers a snow-covered, untended, and sick baby lying in a bassinet next to an open window. The girl gathers up the baby and heads out into a deadly winter storm and is soon hunted by the meth dealer's gang. Great characters, relentless plotting, and dark humor mark this superior novel of suspense and survival.



Detroit Disassembled by Philip Levin, Andrew Moore photographer. Damiani/Arkon Art Museum, 2010, $50.

A great gift for photographers or anyone who enjoys photography as art. Photographer Andrew Moore's subject is the crumbling factories, ruined churches, deserted schools, and abandoned houses of a post apocoliptic Detroit. The book prompts a wide range of emotions.  Who thought garbage, derelict buildings, and empty factory floors could be transformed into astonishing works of art that are sad and trans formative. Page after page of stunning photographs that at times remind one of looking at photos of ancient Rome or Greece. 



The Veteran by Frank P. Slaughter. Mission Point Press, 2016, $18.95 pb.

The engrossing novel of a Michigan Civil War soldier who is wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga and is discharged because of his wound and unknowingly also suffers from PTSD. He goes home to Michigan and decides to make a career in lumbering while trying to deal with his terrible nightmares and his troubling outbursts of anger. Harrowing battle scenes and rigorously authentic descriptions of the life of a Michigan lumberjack in the 1860s makes for a fascinating and compelling read. One of the best novels I've read in the past year. A full review will appear in a later post.



Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling. HMH Books, 1980, $11.95

An Indian boy carves a toy canoe and sets it free on Lake Superior hoping it will drift through the Great Lakes and to the Atlantic. A great introduction to the geography and lore of the Great Lakes. Wonderful illustrations that captivate readers, draw them into the majesty of our Inland Sea, and record a marvelous adventure. A great read aloud book for elementary and pre-school children.



The Situation in Flushing by Edmund G. Love. Wayne State University Press, 1987, $24.95

A warm, funny, wise, and captivating autobiography of  a childhood spent in Flushing, Michigan at the turn of the 20th Century. This much loved book has brought readers from afar to walk the streets of Flushing. It has also been taught in history and sociology classes at U of M with classes making field trips to the village. A Michigan classic.



True North by Jim Harrison.Grove Press, 2004, $16.00

A moving novel of a son's estrangement from his lumber baron father because of the father's ravenous destruction of the Upper Peninsula's forests. One reviewer called it, "the epic of  Michigan's Upper Peninsula." A great book by one of  Michigan's most celebrated writers.



Terror in the City of Champions: Murder, Baseball and the Secret Society that Shocked Depression-era Detroit by Tom Stanton. Lyons Press, 2016, $12.20 pb.

Stanton chronicles a strange confluence of events that gripped the Motor City in the mid 1930s when the Detroit Tigers, the Lions, and Red Wings all won their first national championships while the Black Legion, a virulent Klan-like organization, was using murder and threats of violence to win control of Detroit and even had visions of taking over Washington. Selected as one of the great reads of the year by NPR.



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Post 8

Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Quote for the day: "It is so healthy here, that a person has to get off the island to die."   
                        A soldier stationed on Mackinac Island in 1830.




Reviews


Tracking the Beast
by Henry Kisor

Michigan mystery readers will take to Henry Kisor and his book featuring Sheriff Steve Martinez because it is so good on so many many levels. It is a well-crafted police procedural, peopled with believable characters, and boasts an absolutely unique plot line. The remote Upper Peninsula milieu is captured like a fly in amber and to my great delight the author puts the village of Ontanogan and Ontanogan County on the literary map.  I'm guessing many Michigan readers will have trouble even finding it on a map. 

Although set in Michigan the mystery begins when railroad workers in Omaha clean out a long unused hopper bulk freight car and discover the skeleton of a small child. The case falls in the lap of  Porcupine (read Ontonagan) County Sheriff Martinez' lap because the hopper car came from a large rail siding deep in the woods in his county. Various railroads have stored freight cars there when not needed, and some have been sat on the remote siding for years.

With the help of the Michigan State Police, tribal police, and game wardens Martinez cordons off the large railyard and begins a through screening of dozens of hopper cars. In a day long search two more dead girls and the body of a man shot in the back of the head are found lying inside two other hoppers. The cops are more than perplexed. There's little chance of identifying the remains of the two girls and it is unlikely the dead man is the killer of the girls.

Kisor unwinds the mystery and the work of the police team with a deft hand. The task force's investigative work feels authentic, and the systematic search for a needle in who knows how many haystacks captivates the reader. Railroad buffs will also probably enjoy the book for its information on railroad operations. 

This the fourth Steve Martinez mystery and frankly they deserve much more attention than they have received. They're worth reading just for the Upper Peninsula ambience as in this passage, "One gets spoiled by the wilderness of the Upper Peninsula, where heavy traffic consists of a dozen cars backed up behind a one-lane path around bridge repairs, where you can go into the woods all day without encountering another human being, where the air is so clean you can take deep breaths without coughing, where you can lie on your back in a forest clearing and count every star in the Milky Way."

The author is a retired editor and critic of the old Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times. He was a finalist in 1981 for a Pulitzer Prize for criticism and spends half the year in a cabin on the shores of Lake Superior in Ontonagon County. He obviously knows how to write and is writing in near obscurity. Wake up mystery lovers and take a literary trip to the western U.P.



Kisor, Henry. Tracking the Beast, Gale Cengage Learning, 2015. $25.95



Pinery Boys: Songs and Songcatching in the Lumberjack Era
by Franz Rickaby with Gretchen Dykstra and  James P. Leary

In August 1919 Franz Rickaby strapped a rucksack on his back, threw a fiddle over his shoulder, wrapped his hand around a walking stick, and took his first steps out of Charlevoix, Michigan on a 900-mile journey on foot to North Dakota. Rickaby was a songcatcher and his 900-mile wander took him to lumber camps from Michigan to North Dakota where he hoped to hear and record on paper the songs of the shanty boys. Rickaby was friendly, open, and usually chinned his fiddle and played for the lumberjacks in their bunkhouses where it was traditional for the shanty boys to entertain themselves nightly by taking turns singing songs. It was an unwritten rule that a singer could not repeat a song already sung. Rickaby's mission was to collect and preserve the unique songs of the lumber camps in the fading days of White Pine era in the northern Midwest.

Published in 1926 the book Ballads and Songs of the Shanty Boys quickly became a classic among folklorists. The book didn't just contain song lyrics, but most often contained the melody, and who wrote the song and its many derivations. Franz Rickaby died before the book came off the press and Franz left a significant amount of unpublished matrial he'd gathered and probably meant to publish at a later date.The book also was soon out of print.

Pinery Boys is three books in one. It brings Ballads and Songs of the Shanty Boy back into print, it also contains a short biography of Rickaby by his granddaughter, and the final third of the book contains forgotten and unpublished songs that were omitted from the 1926 book.

Many of the songs originated in Michigan and became favorites throughout the Midwestern north woods. "Michigan-I-O details the difficulting traveling to and living conditions in the camps and after complaining of the bad food and having to bed down in snow the laundry list of complaints ends with: 
"We'll see are wives and sweethearts, and tell them not to go
To that God-foresaken country called Michigan-I-O."

"Jack Haggerty's Flat River Girl" is a long lament about being dumped by a sweetheart and was sung by thousands of jacks around the Greenville timber yards and Muskegon River. "Harry Bail" came from a family of songs recounting in bloody detail the injuries and death that were so close at hand in sawmills and lumber yards. The songs second stansa sets the scene:
"In the township of Arcade, in the county of Lapeer,
There stands a little shingle mill that has run about one year.
'Tis where the dreadful deed was done caused many to weep and wail.
'Tis where this poor boy lost his life, his name was Harry Bail."

The song "Silver Jack" is worth the price of the book itself.   Jack was an authentic north woods character. He could drink most men under the table and was famous for his no holds barred fisticuffs. Lumberjacks loved to trade tales of his storied fights and "Silver Jack" recounts one of them. The fight started because a young atheist lumberjack was too outspoken about his lack of religion and Jack took exception. In part the lyrics read:
"One day we were all sittin'round
Smokin' black-head tobacco
And hearing Bob expound:
Hell, he said, was all humbug,
And he made it plain as day
That the bible was a fable,
and we 'lowed it looked that way.
Miracles and such like
Were too rank for him to stand,
And as for him they called the Savior
He was just a common man.

"Your a liar," someone shouted,                Now this Bob weren't no coward
"And you got to take it back."                   And he answered bold and free:
Then everybody started--                           "Stack your duds and cut your capers,
Twas the words of Silver Jack.                   For there ain't no flies on me."
And he cracked his fists together                And they fit for forty minutes
And he stacked his duds and cried,            And the crowd would whoop and cheer
"Twas in that religion                                   When Jack spit up a tooth or two
That my mother lived and died;                  Or when Bobby lost an ear."
and though I haven't always 
Used the Lord exactly right,
Yet when I hear a chump abuse him
He's got to eat his words or fight."

The remainder of the song tells of the end of the fight and Bob's sudden acceptance of the divinity of Christ and in Chrsitian brotherhood they passed a bottle of rot gut liquor around the room.

The granddaughter's short biography of her songcatcher grandfather and his work is an introduction to a fascinating and all to short a life. And who knew songcatcher was a job title and one ever operated in the state. The songs collected by Rickaby are pure gold and all the more interesting because many were born in Michigan's north woods. If you're drawn to intereting lives, American folklore, the wild and wooly lumbering era in Michigan and the Midwest, or American folk songs then, "stack your duds and cut your capers," and go out and get the book. Or just tap the book's image below to order it.



Rickaby, Franz. Dykstra, Gretchen. Leary, James P.  Pinery Boys: Songs and Songcatching in the Lumberjack Era, University of Wisconsin Press, 2017, 356p.   $25.95


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Post # 7

Wednesday, November 1, 2017




Quote of the Day: "The first qualification for public office in Hamtramck is a prison term." A common saying of the 1940s because of the graft and corruption in the city's government.



Reviews


The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of Straits
by Tiya Miles


This book is a triumph of research and persistence in sifting through scraps and pieces of  primary source material from Detroit's first century of existence.  Yes, its a scholarly work but very readable and it details an aspect of the Motor City's history that is often ignored or just consigned to the shadows - slavery in Detroit. The author's premise is that from its founding through its first hundred years the 'Peculiar Institution' was an integral part of Detroit's economy and culture. 

In Detroit both Native Americans and African Americans were held in bondage and the buying and selling of slaves was common practice. Most Native American slaves were female and worked as household servants and quite often were their owners' mistresses. On the other hand Indian slaves were freed much more often than African slaves. African Americans usually numbered about a third of the Detroit slaves, at any one time, and were considered a status symbol by most slave holders.

Slaves as a whole were only a small percentage of Detroit's population. In 1750 Detroit counted 33 slaves out of a population of 483 souls. By 1773 the number had risen to 85 and spiked in 1782 to 180 and to 288 in 1796.  The sharp rise in numbers was due to the French and Indian War when Detroit raiding parties as far south as Kentucky and invariably returned with slaves. By the end of the War of 1812 slavery was all but gone in the territory. 

Which leads me to the one disagreement I have with the publisher, not the author. The book's blurb claims that, "Miles reveals that slavery was at the heart of the Midwest's iconic city..." I think that's overselling a very important and valuable history. Cadillac didn't found the city to further slavery, nor does the book persuade me or argue that the city would have failed if it didn't have slaves or a small slave trade.

The author does convince the reader that because of Detroit's physical and jurisdictional isolation in the 1700s the issue of slavery was not addressed until the U.S. took control of the city after the War of 1812. It did not help that the city was often operating under conflicting French, British and American laws. Jay's Treaty of 1795 averted war between the U.S. and Britain and also gave control of British forts and Detroit to the Americans within two years. The treaty also insured French and British subjects they would loose no property after the Americans take over. This obviously included their slaves.

At the same time the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 banned slavery and involuntary 
servitude. The author presents plenty of evidence on how the law was either simply ignored or the slave owners had their chattels make an X on a sheet of paper that turned them into voluntary indentured servants for life. Ms. Miles is especially good at ferreting out both the tragedy and absurdity of slave law. For some years before Canada outlawed slavery a Canadian slave could escape to Detroit and be recognized as a free man and courts would not send the ex slave back to bondage. On the other hand slavery still existed in Detroit and slaves regularly escaped across the river where they were made free men and courts wouldn't return them to the United States. And then the author tells the story of  family of slaves that fled to Canada gained their freedom and then the father of the family was asked to return to Detroit and recruit and lead a Black armed militia. He accepted the offer and was promoted to Captain. So Detroit became the first place in America with a company of armed ex African American slaves commanded by Black officers.

The author makes this history personal, intimate, and interesting by telling the early history of the city through the lives of the slaves as well as the slave holders. The author digs up wills, court records, and family journals, in order to paint a picture of  individual slave experiences in Detroit and the Cat's Cradle of confusing laws that ensnared a slave in a web of deceit and oppression.

The result is a revelatory study of Detroit's first hundred years.



Miles. Tiya. The dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits, The New Press, 2017, $27.95






Sweet Girl
by Travis Mulhauser


This novel is an addictive, taut, gritty, and suspenseful slice of up north Michigan noir.
Percy James is a 16-year-old girl who in personality and spunk could be the twin sister of Mattie from True Grit. Her older sister has married and moved to the West Coast to get away from her meth addicted mother, leaving young Percy to deal with mom Carletta.

When Carletta disappears for several days it is up to Percy to find her, even as a fierce winter storm dead aim at northern Michigan and Emmet County where Percy and her mom live. The obvious place to look is Sheldon's, one of the major meth dealers in the county. Heading into Emmett County's back country Percy gets her truck stuck in a snow drift as night falls, and has to walk the last mile to the meth house in a growing storm. She finds Sheldon and his girl friend passed out in the living room and quietly searches the house for her mother.  Instead she finds a few months old baby in a second floor bedroom lying in a bassinet shoved up next to an open window with blowing snow starting to cover the baby. On close examination the baby girl's dirty diapers haven't been changed for ages, she suffers from horrendous blisters and rashes across her back and bottom, and she's screaming to be fed. Percy wraps the baby in blankets, grabs a can of dry baby formula and baby in hand flees into the storm.

Percy knows Sheldon will come after her and heads for a cabin well back in the woods looking for help from an old man who once was sweet on Percey's mom and lived with them for a year. The man's name is Portis and is the closest thing Percy has ever had to a dad. And I can't help but believe Mulhauser named the character as homage to Charles Portis the author of True Grit. Portis, the character, is is an irascible old drunk, rude more often than not, and for his age a rugged outdoorsman. He kicked drugs but continues to drink heavily because as he says, "I suppose it is a slower more reasonably portioned suffering."

Portis can't turn down Percy's cry for help. They feed the child, treat her blisters, and rashes the best they can, and worried about the child's elevated fever, Percy and Portis take off cross country heading for Petoskey and the hospital. They will not only have to survive the storm but avoid being captured by Sheldon's deadly crew of drug dealers and enforcers. To make it even worse Percey and Portis are on foot while Sheldon's crew is hunting for them on snowmobiles. 

The rest of the novel unfolds during the course of the night. The two main characters are finely drawn and engage readers' full attention. Milhauser writes crackling dialogue and is very good at capturing the isolation and hopelessness of the poor, and those who live on the ragged fringes of society. Veins of dark humor run through the story and throughout the book memorable sentences abound. On enduring Emmet County winters Percy remarks, "It's not so much the cold, it's the fact that at some point the ass kicking feels personal."

The author is from Petoskey and currently lives in Durham, North Carolina. Here's hoping readers don't have to wait too long before Mulhauser makes another literary visit to his hometown.



Mulhauser, Travis. Sweet Girl, HarperCollins, 2016, $26.99, pb 



And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917- 2017
Ronald Riekki, editor

From the introduction by Thomas Lynch, in which Michigan's award-winning literary funeral director recalls a childhood trip to the U.P. to the heart-breaking poem about the devastating impact of drugs on the Rez this book seems nothing short of a gift from the publisher. Except for a few well-known authors, U.P. literature, from poetry and novels, to mysteries and non fiction, is often overlooked or simply ignored. Even those who consider themselves widely read will not recognize a majority of the author's names.  Or as Lynch writes in his introduction this is, "A book brought into being, like a bridge to a mysterious place, offers us access to voices stilled by time or disinterest or obscurity."

Editor Ronald Riekki has mined a century of U.P. writers and poets plus a few pieces from authors from below the bridge to present readers with the rich literary landscape found north of the Straits of Mackinac. The poems and excerpts from the little known writers living north of the Straits are often the most interesting and surprising because they let the reader see the U.P and its culture through the eyes of those who live there. The book also offers the joy of revisiting and rediscovering work from familiar authors like mystery writer Steve Hamilton, or Ernest Hemingway, Jim Harrison, and even Gordon Lighfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and its opening sentence that still sends chivers down the spine. If you've forgotten, it reads:

     "The legend lives on from the Chippewas on down
        Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee."

There are many stand out poems and excerpts but I must mention a few favorites. Mildred Walker's novel "Fireweed" is set in the post lumbering days of the U.P. when immigrants arrived and, with only limited success, tried to farm a land blistered with white pine stumps and covered in acres of slashings. Walker won the Hopwell Award for the this novel and was a National Book Award nominee for a later book. The chapter  included here nails the desolation left in the wake of clearcut lumbering in Michigan.

Michigan Supreme Court Justice and author of "Anatomy of a Murder" Robert Traver is represented by a chapter from his "Laughing Whitefish." The novel is an enlightening courtroom drama in which a Native American tries to legally reclaim land belonging to the tribe. I've never read one of Justice Traver's legal opinions but I can attest to his narrative skills in telling a story and capturing a historical period.

The dozens of poems in the book range from a tribute to  the U.P.'s culinary contribution to the state -- a pasty, to the Soo Locks, and the wilderness landscape and the folks who've learn to live in it. Other poems take the reader to a pow wow and a even a Dominoes Pizza. I must admit I'm not always a big fan of poetry but there are poems here that bury themselves in your 
heart. The poem "To Dance is to Pray"is a wonderfully moving description of a pow wow. One stansa reads:  "Your blood pumps with purpose,
                           in rhythm. Thunderous chills climb,
                           your spine -- spirit passengers riding your bones
                           ascending, spirits of those yet to be born. Spirits of those
                           who have passed on, spirits of those
                           who lie alone, awake
                           dying.
                           The heartbeat sounds. The lead singer on the 
                            host drum cries to the open sky. At the base of hundreds 
                            of pines 
                            a thousand footsteps
                            erupt in time.
                            Grand Entry begins.

The last word on what it means to be a Yooper comes from the poem "Vacationland" by Ander Monson. The last sentence of the first stansa reads:
                             "Everyone from here is still here
                                regardless of where they are or where they end."

This collection of writings is as refreshing and eye-opening as a dip in Lake Superior's Whitefish Bay on a hot day.



Riekki, Ronald, ed. And Here: 100 Years of Upper Peninsula Writing, 1917 -2017, Michigan State University Press, 2017, $29.95 
      














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