In 1933, a young Jewish family leaves an increasingly tense Germany for New York. Eager to make a place for his family in America, Heinrich Schwartz purchases a large acreage in Washington State with plans to plant an apple orchard. With his wife, Anna and young sons Hans and Gustav, Heinrich begins to build a legacy in the rich valley of Wenatchee and is fueled not only by his ambition but also the grief of having left his aging parents behind. As his orchard grows, so does his family and the community around him. Hans trains as a doctor and fathers little Gerhardt, while Gustav commits to the family business and marries. But when a tragic accident threatens to dismantle the family legacy, a secret is buried and changes the fate of the family forever.
Before I read this little epic, a story of one family and of a whole nation, both one and the same, I ran into the writer who’s review of it had appeared in our newspaper a couple of weeks prior. He gave it a good write-up, but I wondered what he would say of it person to person, off the record. “It’s a darn good yarn,” he said after a brief reflection, “kind of like Mitchener.’
I thought of “Hawaii” and “Alaska,” two of the prolific Mitchener’s titles I’d read, remembering how both informed my impressions of those places I retain even now, decades later. When later I held a copy in my hands, it shot up to the top of my next read list. I’m glad it did.
Myrna Brown casts a wide net in “A People at the Source of a River,” a story spanning more than five decades of one family’s discovery, adoption, and mastery of a new homeland. It could have been “War and Peace.” Instead, it was more like “Love Story,” if you remember that simple, tragic tale of love and loss. Ms. Brown’s is a simple tale, simply told. Simple, but not superficial, not trivial. It’s lean, like a distance runner, longer than a parable.
Throughout her story, she hangs details like ornaments on a Christmas tree, with spaces in between them. Like when one son presents an engagement ring to his beloved in his mother’s garden, where ” a hummingbird fed from the many transplanted native plants along the paths,” and “meandering irrigation channels gurgled through the labyrinth of narrow troughs.” Details of one scene, then skipping onward in time sometimes years with nary a word.
Especially through roughly the first half, “People” reminded me of Louis L’Amours’, “How the West Was Won,” a saga of another time in some of the same places, peopled by risk-taking believers in their American dream. But in the last half, it casts out on its own, finding itself, making its own mark.
I wanted a little more. More would have added pages, to be sure, but I found myself wondering how this character or that handled this loss or that death. We’re left to wonder or decide on our own. I don’t feel cheated; the story is solid as it stands. I feel like I could have handled seconds of a very good dinner.
To disclose, this is my first book review. I am a former reporter and editor in broadcast news, with undergraduate degrees in English and creative writing. The book was a gift, I did not purchase it at Amazon. I have met Ms. Brown one time and her family has done some business with me in the past.
This is a little gem of a book that builds character in the reader, even as it shows that character in and of itself doesn’t always make things come out right.