Dave VH had heard about this book on NPR so I wrote down the title and actually remembered to look it up one day in the library.
It is the tale of a young, nearly feral girl/woman named Margo Crane. She and her parents live on a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. Her mother runs off and her father is killed. Margo is beautiful and blossoming (although she has no awareness of herself as an object of desire) and she is raped by a neighbor, the patriarch of a large clan just upriver.
Interestingly, for Margo, the rape is not really a seminal event in her life although it does set in motion the series of circumstances that determine her life for the next few years. She is remarkable as she is forced to leave and as she travels upriver, socially awkward but not averse to human companionship, spending several months with two vastly different men, and then fleeing again, this time downriver.
"Rape sounded like a quick and violent act, like making a person empty her wallet at the point of a knife, like shooting someone or stealing a TV. What Cal had done was gentler, more personal, like passing a virus. She had not objected to Cal's actions in the shed, had even been curious about what was happening. For the last year, however, it had been gnawing at her, and Margo had been forming her objection."
She is a survivalist and can shoot a gun nearly as well as Annie Oakley, her heroine. Always, Margo wonders where her mother is and if she can find her. She does eventually, which is also part of this story...
For me, it was interesting because the milieu is close to where I live. It seemed like a tale out of Appalachia a century ago but really is quite modern. There are wonderfully redemptive characters, especially at the end of the book, but also Cal's wife Joanna, and Michael, one of her upstream lovers.
Through it all, she perseveres and matures as the river continues to be her comfort, her haven, her home.
She eventually meets Smoke and his friend Fishbone and Margo's life settles somewhat in satisfying ways. Which you will discover should you read it.
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