Prudence
A Novel
Book - 2015
On a sweltering day in August 1942, Frankie Washburn returns to his family's rustic Minnesota resort for one last visit before he joins the war as a bombardier, headed for the darkened skies over Europe. Awaiting him at the Pines are those he's about to leave behind: his hovering mother; the distant father to whom he's been a disappointment; the Indian caretaker who's been more of a father to him than his own; and Billy, the childhood friend who over the years has become something much more intimate. But before the homecoming can be celebrated, the search for a German soldier, escaped from the POW camp across the river, explodes in a shocking act of violence, with consequences that will reverberate years into the future for all of them and that will shape how each of them makes sense of their lives.
Publisher:
New York : Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA), 2015
ISBN:
9781594633089
1594633088
1594633088
Characteristics:
x, 253 p. ; 24 cm


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Add a CommentWhatever book Lisa 1947 read, it wasn't this one by any stretch of the imagination.
If you are looking for a book with heros and uplifting, redeptive happy endings, look elsewhere. This was a very good read.
One of the best books I've read. It is poetic and gentle in it's telling of a man who has been tortured in a prison out break and his way of redemption. He is a fiddle player and this adds to his enjoyment of life. The end is a surprise but the whole book grips the reader from the beginning
If prudence is an admirable quality of character and I think it is, then there's plenty of that quality to explore in David Treuer's just-nominated-for-the-Minnesota-Book-Award novel of the same name. But, it’s a young woman Prudence who takes her life in the opening pages that gives the book its name. Set in the 1940s near an Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota, the book tells of the repercussions of an earlier death on the family who owns a nearby resort, its caretaker Felix and, of course, Prudence. Richly layered and nuanced, you think you know where you’re going with your reading until you turn a page and find that’s not it. I’m having a hard time summarizing it in just a few words. It’s a beautifully written book. Felix was my favorite character, one absolutely endowed with prudence. Highly recommended.
Just could not get into this book. Hard to follow storyline, gave it up.