Great Beginnings Book Club discussion

Sorry for the late posting of the discussion questions for The Great Alone, everyone. It’s difficult to appreciate just how radically things have changed over the past month. So, first things first, let me just express my sincere hope that everyone is safe, healthy, and calm during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moffat Library has a collection of resources for navigating the various aspects of the current crisis, including finding reliable health information, avoiding scams, getting economic help, ideas for contributing to relief efforts, and educational tools while schools are closed. And, as always, we’re here to provide digital access to ebooks and audiobooks to help keep people entertained and consoled while they’re stuck at home. Reading has always had communal aspects, and that doesn’t change now. I look forward to engaging online with everyone here and elsewhere over the coming weeks and months. Stay well and stay connected. We’ll be posting a lot more in the near future.

It’s only been a couple of weeks since we met to discuss Hannah’s novel about family, self-reliance, and community spirit in stark, beautiful Alaska. There’s a certain irony in encountering a handful of survivalists and emergency preppers in the book and then experiencing a moment of genuine emergency – as Mad Earl and Ernt Allbright put it in the novel when TSHTF. “ ’When the shit hits the fan. You know. Martial Law. A nuclear bomb. Or a pandemic.’ He tore off a hunk of bread, dragged it in the meat juice.” (pg. 92) The ideas of bugout bags, paranoid drills to field dress a rifle, and hoarding supplies in the face of natural danger have taken on a sharper menace than they had in the beginning of March. I certainly will look back on the book differently in light of these extraordinary circumstances.

But survivalism is only one aspect of The Great Alone (and a relatively small one at that), so I will limit myself to just one question about it.

1. The inhabitants of Kaneq, Alaska place a significant value on self-reliance and individual freedom. Many ventured north to escape the crush and expectations of the cities and suburbs of the lower 48 states. They sought the freedom to live how they wanted without the interference of neighbors or rules or bureaucracy. And they all emphasized the lonely, dangerous reality of Alaska – the only one who can ultimately take care of you is yourself.

“ ‘How long have you lived here?’ Mama asked.
‘Ten of the best years of my life,’ Large Marge answered. ‘Life in the bush is hard work, but you can’t beat the taste of salmon you caught in the morning, drizzled with butter you churned from your own fresh cream. Up here, there’s no one to tell you what to do or how to do it. We each survive our own way. If you’re tough enough, it’s heaven on earth.’ ” (pg. 39)

Yet the novel makes it abundantly clear that communitarian cooperation is a superior survival strategy to short-sighted individualism. Even the most antisocial hermits in Kaneq come out of the wilderness for the town’s meetings and celebrations. Everyone makes a point of giving the Allbright family gifts when they first arrive in Alaska. Everyone works together to rescue people lost or trapped during the long winter nights. And quixotic efforts to cut oneself off from the community and the help of other people invariably leads to disaster.

“ ‘I have some potatoes and onions I can spare. There’s still time for them. I can give you a bunch of carrot starts. And I can spare a few live chickens.’
‘Oh, really, you shouldn’t –'
‘Believe me, Cora, you have no idea how long the winter will be and how soon it will be here. It’s one thing up here for men – a lot of them are going to leave for work in that new pipeline. You and me – mothers – we stay on the homestead and keep our children alive and well. It’s not always easy; the way we do it is together. We help whenever we can. We trade. Tomorrow I’ll show you how to can salmon. You need to start filling your root cellar with food for winter now.’ ” (pg. 52)

Does living in hostile environments (or during crises) requirement more community cooperation or individual initiative and self-reliance? At the same time, do stark and unforgiving circumstances cause breakdowns in cooperation or inspire additional generosity and selflessness? Or perhaps both?

2. In the acknowledgements, Hannah describes an extensive family history of adventurers and explorers. Her interest in Alaska is a personal one. “Years later, my dad went in search of adventure again. He found it in Alaska, on the shores of the magnificent Kenai River. There, my parents met homesteaders Laura and Kathy Pedersen, a mother and daughter, who had operated a resort on that incomparable stretch of riverfront for years, In the early eighties, these two pioneering families came together and began a company that would come to be known as the Great Alaska Adventure Lodge. Three generations of my family have worked at the lodge. All of us have fallen in the love with the Last Frontier.” (pg. 439)

Is it Alaska – and not the main characters, Leni and Cora – that figures as a the most important entity in the novel? Is Hannah trying to capture a particular time and place rather than narrating a family drama? How is the association with place in the novel important for understanding the character’s motivations?

3. We spent a lot of time talking about Leni’s father Ernt in our group meeting. Many members told stories of how they or someone they knew was deeply affected by experiences in the Vietnam War. They sympathized with the physical and psychological damage Ernt clearly experienced. And people noted how Ernt is the driving force behind all of the family’s decisions – both good and bad – and interactions.

It is ironic, then, that Ernt is something of a flat character. His abusiveness toward Cora, his paranoia, his grotesque domineering, and his general unpleasantness make for a character so unsympathetic that we viewed him more as some sort of natural disaster that the other characters need to simply work around rather than engage with.

Ernt’s character creates an odd tension. He may very well be the most potentially interesting character. It is easy to imagine a slightly different story – told from Ernt’s perspective and where his actions are not so universally monstrous and threatening – that aligns with the psychological and physical adventure of trying to survive the long Alaskan night. At the same time, we read passages where members of the Kaneq community threaten to kill Ernt if he doesn’t treat his family better with a kind of grim satisfaction.

“ ‘Tommy and I have talked about this,’ Large Marge said. ‘Your situation here. We have a couple of solutions, but really, Ernt, our favorite one is we take you out and kill you.’

Dad laughed once, then went silent. His eyes widened when he realized they weren’t joking.” (pg. 163)

Are there any redeeming qualities or mitigating circumstances to Ernt’s character? Does he have any agency at all in the story or is he just some malevolent force of nature? At the same time, would Leni and Cora have a story at all if not for the choices he made? Is the novel a commentary on how America thought about domestic abuse in the 1970s? What progress, if any, have we made since then to protect against domestic abuse?

4. This last question is a spoiler, so please wait until you’ve actually finished the book before reading it. (view spoiler)[Does Matthew’s survival and relative cognizance at the end of the novel seem realistic? Is this the sort of story that merits a mostly happy ending? And what does this mean for comparisons between how Ernt and Matthew dealt with profound suffering? Sometimes exceedingly rare things happen. Sometimes those unlikely events are to our benefit. Despite the novel making is abundantly clear that there are a thousand ways to die in Alaska, society there endures and thrives. I think it is safe to say that we are happy to see that Leni and Matthew get a happy ending. But did they take any steps, either individually or as part of the Alaska community, to make this outcome more likely? Resilience in the face of adversity is always worthwhile, but people in the real world don’t have an author to ensure a tidy outcome. Sometime resilience has to be enough on its own.

“He looked into his son’s face and saw his own past. He suddently remembered things he’d forgotten – the feel of frogs’ eggs in your hand, the way a good laugh sometimes shook your whole body, stories being read by a campfire, playing pirates on the shore, building a fort in the trees. All of that he could teach. Of all the things he’d dreamed of over the years, tried like hell to believe in when his pain was at its worst, this was something he’d never dared to even hope for.” (pg. 427) (hide spoiler)]

Stay well everyone!
As always, feel free to answer any, all, or bring up your own questions.