Readers and Writers: Catching up with 5 Minnesota authors and 6 new reads

Aug. 1—"THIS DISTANCE WE CALL LOVE" by Carol Dines (Orison Books, $18)

".. She couldn't help who she was and what she knew. Instead of seeing the dense orange sunset out of the kitchen window, she saw smoke blowing south from Canadian wildfires. Instead of her neighbors' perfect lawns and manicured gardens, she saw butterflies and bees lost to chemical summers. From morning to night, Nina saw choices, measured solutions, a truce with an unfathomable future. How, in such a world, could any parent teach truth and hope at the same time? (From the story "Grace's Mask")

As we emerge from months of isolation because of the pandemic, we're all taking a new look at relationships, especially within families.

The 13 stories in Carol Dines' luminous new collection are not specifically about the pandemic, but they do explore the loneliness and isolation between husbands and wives, parents and children, and siblings.

In the title story, Dines writes about feelings of a couple growing apart after their 10-year-old son is killed by a distracted driver. The wife grieves by going away to silent meditation without her husband, who doesn't know how to break their grief barrier. A connected story, "Under the Stars," is told in the voice of the woman who drove the vehicle that killed the boy on his bicycle, and how she dealt with her own trauma.

In "Almost," a woman is emotionally drained by dealing with her mentally ill sister, who has no money but takes in old, sick dogs. In "Disappearance," a couple has taken a rental in Italy during the sabbatical of the father, who disappears. The daughter believes he has run away to have an affair with her best friend's mother. And in "Ice Bells," an adopted biracial daughter, adrift in her Norwegian family, turns to phone sex.

The most complicated, and fascinating, story is "Grace's Mask," in which a school class adopts an endangered Sumatran orangutan named Lucy. The mother, Nina, is consumed with environmental issues, but from the first she is uneasy about this class project. Daughter Grace is so enthusiastic she wears a mask making her look like Lucy and moves like an orangutan. When the kids laugh at her or tease her, she bites and kicks. Then the mother learns there is a name for people believing they are animals.

Grace's parents are divided on what to do. Her mother wants her to be aware of the degradation of the earth, but her father asks, "Why does she have to save the world?" He wants her to just be a kid. When the teacher announces Lucy is missing, no longer protected, Grace cannot be comforted.

In "Sargasso Sea," a mother vacationing in Mexico with her daughter, who is being stalked, realizes what a strong woman her daughter is when she ignores the stalker.

Dines' talent is in immediately creating believable characters on the first page of each story, and her stories have arcs — beginning, middle and end — unlike some short stories that don't go anywhere. She drops in dialogue exactly when necessary to move the story but most of the narrative takes place in the minds of the characters.

Dines, who lives in Minneapolis, is an award-winning author of fiction for adults and young adults. She will virtually launch "This Distance We Call Love" at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 4, presented by Magers & Quinn, in conversation with Luke Hankins, author of two poetry collections and founder and editor of Dines' publisher, Orison Books. The free event will be live-streamed on the store's Facebook page and YouTube channel.

"KILLER BLONDE" by Allan Evans (Immortal Works, $14.99)

Cade's internal wheels spun as he processed the ramifications. If this woman, Allard, was being followed — stalked, really — this wasn't a crime of opportunity. This was a killer who selected his victims, followed them, and then killed them. And this killer seemed to have a thing for blondes.

Allan Evans says that the "brilliant storytelling" in Minnesotan John Sandford's Prey series inspired him to write his own novels.

In his new thriller, "Killer Blonde," Evans borrows John Sandford/John Camp's technique of letting us know from the beginning the identity of the killer. He is in a mental cat-and-mouse game with Cabe Dawkins, an investigator with the Minnesota State Patrol, a plainclothes investigator and recent transplant from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Cabe made his reputation by taking down the highway shootout killers and the media loves him.

When a blonde woman is found dead after a crash, Cabe and his smart-mouth young partner Rob soon figure out it was not an accident. More blonde women are found dead, and it's clear this killer is after women with a certain look. While Cabe and Rob try to figure out what connects the victims, the killer is thwarted when the case is taken away from Cabe, because this maniac is out to match wits with the State Patrol star. He thinks he's way smarter than Cabe and plots to get him back on the case.

Then a blonde TV personality and Cabe find mutual attraction, and the killer is in a perfect position to finally close in on Cabe, as the reader holds her breath.

This is a fast-paced story, punctuated by some sometimes-lame humor between Cabe and Rob, and tensions between the State Patrol and the BCA, whose agents look down on the troopers. Cabe is a likable protagonist but if this is the beginning of a series, his personality needs to come more into focus.

Evans, who lives in White Bear Lake, is the son of Twin Cities jazz musician Doc Evans. He says he grew up "surrounded by music, art and literature."

The author also had a young adult novel, "Abnormally Abby," published last fall. It's about a 14-year-old who, because of a mixup, finds herself in a camp for troubled kids instead of the religious camp she was supposed to attend. The ghosts have followed her to camp, but she isn't going to let them take her down.

Evans will sign copies of his books from 10 to11:30 a.m. Friday, Aug. 20, at Lake Country Booksellers, 4766 Washington Square, White Bear Lake.

"RISE" (Nine Star Press, $15.95) and "OLD LOVE" (Bella Books, $16.95)

The voice was back. It had abated during finals and I thought perhaps my sister had stopped haunting me. No such luck. Becky had been stubborn and relentless in her life. I suppose it should have been no surprise that she was the same in death.

Nancy Hedin's "Rise" concludes her LGBTQ trilogy, following her debut novel "Bend" (2017) and "Stray" (2019). so the characters are familiar to her readers.

Lorraine Tyler has been through a lot. In the previous books, she and her twin sister, Becky, vied for the same scholarship. Becky won after Lorraine was caught kissing the pastor's daughter. But Becky got married and gave birth to a boy they called Little Man. Nobody knew how many demons Becky had in her head, and she committed suicide in an awful way. But Lorraine was able to save Little Man.

In "Stray" Lorraine's gay friend Ricky is nearly beaten to death by two farmhands who were paid by the town's most powerful and corrupt citizen.

Which brings us to "Rise," in which Lorraine is concluding her training as a veterinarian along with her friend and roommate Frankie, who's transitioning from male to female. Lorraine's dad is in the hospital, both her long-time girlfriend Charity and a more recent girlfriend are in town, and so are the farmhands who beat Ricky. Do these guys want forgiveness or are they going to harm Lorraine? Worst of all, dead Becky is talking in Lorraine's head.

Surrounded by friends that have been with her in every book, Lorraine tries to trap the guy who paid the farmhands to hurt Ricky, sits by her father's bedside, and tries to handle her strong-willed mother, who gets kicked out of the hospital several times. Besides trying to keep peace between her girlfriends, she is also confused about what to call the relationship between her and Charity.

This is a small, tightly-written book with enough humor in the dialogue to mitigate the seriousness of what it feels like for Frankie to be an outsider who is often asked about the particulars of her anticipated surgery, and Lorraine is a brave, loyal and sometimes overly-confident woman.

"Bend" was named debut novel of the year by Golden Crown Literary Society and Foreword Indies Honorable Mention for GLBT adult novel of the year. "Stray" was a Minnesota Book Award finalist.

'OLD LOVE'

Thinking about witnesses brought her back to thinking about Win. Somehow, he had ended up with Kavanaugh's wallet. Why was the wallet wet? Mary Looked up at the bird perched in his cage. What if the bird had more evidence?

Hedin, who lives in St. Paul, gives a nod to over-60 folks in her other latest novel, "Old Love," set in the fictional town of Whistler, Minn., based on her real-life hometown of Swanville. Although Swanville has only 342 citizens, they pull together to produce the Swanville Midsummer Carnival that raises money for parks, beach renovations and other amenities.

That carnival is at the heart of "Old Love," in which storekeeper Mary Caine is known throughout town as a former drunk who's been sober for five years. Mary inherited the general store from her father and she lives alone except for her talking pet crow, Win, and her dog, Bob Barker. She's a loner but that might change with the return of her college lover, Sadie, who left 30 years earlier.

When two dead bodies are found in the nearby lake, there's talk of canceling the carnival. Mary, who loves the event more than anything, isn't going to let that happen. Her mother took off with the carnival when Mary was a child, and she supposes her mom will return someday during the event.

Mary and two high school kids she hired try to figure out why the dead men were in the lake, and whether they were involved in someone selling the rights to the town's secret recipe for the barbecue sauce that dresses ribs and chicken sold at the carnival

This is a gentle cozy, with Mary's thieving crow one of the starring characters. And it explores whether old love can flourish again. An easy, enjoyable read for a hot afternoon.

"WIFE, WIDOW, NOW WHAT?" by Rachel Engstrom ( Self-published, $16.95).

Most of the time I don't think about it — the hell I have been through, things I've seen and done for love, through love ... things I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. However it is these experiences that have made me strong, fierce, unicorn me, with strength, faith and courage.

Subtitled "How I Navigated the Cancer World and How You Can, Too," Engstrom's experiences as her husband was dying — and her journey through grief — make a horrifying, yet tender and ultimately happy, memoir/self-help book.

Engstrom was only 28 when her husband, Grayson (names have been changed except the author's) was diagnosed with leukemia. For a year and a half Engstrom juggled jobs, visits to the hospital, and care for the couple's cat and dog as she watched her husband move from early stages to eventually needing a bone marrow transplant.

Her descriptions of those days and nights, when she could cuddle with her husband as his body painfully fought one invasion after another, will break a reader's heart. But she was so numb, just putting one foot in front of the other, she somehow got through until the day she held him in her arms when they removed the tubes because his body could bear no more.

Engstrom doesn't hide her post-death grief; crying, being angry at those who stopped supporting her, sometimes wondering how her dream life could fall apart when she was so young. She'd met Grayson at 19 and had never wanted another man.

Much of Engstrom's book is made up of her Caring Bridge postings, as well as some at a private site where she vented to close friends and family, all of whom supported her, especially her parents.

What's especially helpful is that Engstrom gives specific information about whatever she needed to know at each stage of caring for husband and in her later grief, rather than putting it all at the end of the book. Her specific and detailed suggestions range from self-care to helpful organizations she worked hard for on behalf of her husband, including participating in many 5K walks.

Included are 10 pages of song titles that got her through the hard times.

Reading this oversized paperback is a wrenching but uplifting experience, as Engstrom lives through confusion, indecision, multiple jobs, days of staying in bed, depression and bad dates, but also happy memories of her husband and her pride in staying with him every step of his journey to the end. Her voice on the page is straightforward and friendly, although she admits to being outspoken sometimes.

By the last third of Engstrom's book, her posts are becoming a little repetitive and a tough editor could have made it leaner without sacrificing tone or important experiences. But perhaps her target audience — young widows — need every word just as she wrote them.

Her book ends happily, with her remarriage and scattering of her husband's ashes in their favorite places, including an illegal one in front of First Avenue where they had so many good times.

"CRETIN BOY" by Jim Landwehr (Burning Bulb Publishing, $14.99)

Or maybe, just maybe, it is the realization that my days as a boy were behind me. That this was a little taste of what it was like to be a man. To compliment a truly good, deserving woman, and treat her with dignity and resect. To give her a flower, make her feel beautiful, open doors for her, and share a meal together. It was a coming-of-age moment of sorts, and I knew it.

The quote above is Jim Landwehr reminiscing about taking a girl to a dance for the first time. It illustrates what makes this book more than this-is-what-I-did. The author not only writes about his life at St. Paul's Cretin military school in the 1970s, he muses on what various experiences taught him about what it means to be a man..

Coming of age at a Catholic boys' school such as Cretin wasn't always easy, what with doses of military regulations and Catholic guilt. (The author once wished a teacher he couldn't stand would die, and to his horror the man did so over Christmas vacation.)

This easy-to-read paperback is divided into topics — cars, jobs (working at the Lexington Restaurant), pop culture, military inspections, vice (yes, there was drinking involved but not a lot) — and adventures such as exploring the caves in the bluffs on both sides of the river with his best buddies.

Landwehr believes he got a quality education at Cretin, but he thinks co-ed classes are better because boys/men learn to interact with girls. (Cretin did eventually combine with Derham Hall.)

Landwehr, who lives in Waukesha, Wis., is author of "Dirty Shirt: A Boundary Waters Memoir" and "The Portland House: A '70s Memoir."