Review by Victor R. Volkman At first glance, Joseph D. Haske’s North Dixie Highway is a rage-fueled trip through three generations of an Eastern U.P. family locked in a cycle of grinding poverty, trauma, and alcoholism. But beneath the surface there’s much more lurking as we follow this broken family…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera As the back cover states, Debt and Disregard: A Superior Point Novel is about “the hard-drinking, rough talking, and sexually pragmatic inhabitants of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with characters defined by the region where they live.” While there certainly are people like those in the story…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera To begin this review, it is important to keep in mind that classic novels are very different from modern novels. Classics are short on action and “showing” scenes and long on backstory, detailed descriptions and explanations. In Olav Audunssøn, the lengthy details revolve around the…
Reviewed by Hannah Brinza Deborah Frontiera’s new book Superior Tapestry sets itself the task of weaving together the history of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Those of you familiar with Deborah’s work may recall her novella Midnight in the Pawn Shop, in which objects at the pawn shop come to life and…
Review by Brad Gischia There are many books that detail the history of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. These are often rigorously researched and documented (some may be less so) and they represent an important aspect of the way we understand this strange little corner of the world. The SideRoad…
Review by Tyler Tichelaar The wait is over. Fans of Ellen Airgood’s South of Superior have waited a decade for her new novel Tin Camp Road. In the interim, Airgood published two young adult novels, Prairie Evers and its sequel The Education of Ivy Blake, but this is her first…
Reviewed by Tyler R. Tichelaar New Novel Recreates Hiawatha Myth for Modern Day James Charles Harwood’s new novel Julia Island is a rollickingly funny novel with some serious undertones that takes the myth of Hiawatha, along with Native American stereotypes, quantum physics, and recent American history, and mixes them all…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera Seasons of the Birch, a work of historical fiction begins in 1944 and ends in the present, although the emphasis is on the years 1944-1959. The main character, Ruth Amundson, is a petite, easily blown away, shorter than average young woman who has been working…
