Photo by Jean-LucBertini
A compelling new novel set in World War II-era Minnesota follows a tight-knit community as they struggle to make sense of an unforeseen tragedy. Prudence, by author David Treuer, is told from five diverse points of view and spans more than a decade. This intricate, melancholy narrative is at once a story of race, sex, class, love and war.
When young Frankie Washburn, a newly minted college graduate, returns to his family’s resort near a northern Minnesota reservation in the summer of 1942, he is expecting to reconnect with his family and spend time with his ever increasingly intimate childhood friend Billy, before heading off to the Air Force as a bombardier. However, before Frankie can enjoy any reunion, a calamitous act of violence involving an escaped German POW soldier and a young Indian girl ensues, and the townspeople must learn how to cope in the wake of this unexpected accident.
As the two boys—one white and one native—move dangerously closer to one another, a sorrowful, evocative tale blossoms. Set against a familiar backdrop of war, this labyrinthine tale is simultaneously a shocking, page-turning mystery and a tumultuous, emotional love story. Prudence is filled with uniquely realistic personalities whose intersecting destinies are both achingly familiar and hauntingly complex.
Treuer is the author of three previous novels, including Little, which was awarded the Minnesota Book Award. Treuer is an Ojibwe Indian who grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota and whose fiction often centers on Native American life. He will appear at Boswell Book Co. at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 20.
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Book Happening:
Midwest Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference
Feb. 20-22
UW-Milwaukee, Curtin Hall 175
3243 N. Downer Ave.
The tenth annual conference is organized entirely by students and gives scholars from around the world the opportunity to share in creative arts. This year’s affair will feature the cultural scholars Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman, authors of the book Sex, or the Unbearable. More information can be found online at themigc.com.