Book: South of Superior by Ellen Airgood

I really liked this novel.....Dave VH had either read it or heard a review on NPR, and I vaguely remembered I had also, so I immediately got it from the library.

This was a satisfying book. I was drawn into the characters and milieu in equal measure. Writing about what she knows (the author lives in Grand Marais, on the shores of Lake Superior), her fictional town of McAllaster is easily imagined for anyone who has ever passed through the northern Upper Peninsula.

It's a small town without big city amenities and/or distractions; no Starbucks, no movie theatre, one grocery store, only a couple of restaurants; no gyms or masseuse or yoga instructor, not even a library...so Madeline, a Chicago girl, wonders what she is doing in McAllaster and whether she will stay.

Originally, she had agreed to come and help with the care of Arbutus, a sweet, elderly, arthritic woman, when asked by Arbutus' sister, Gladys. There are family connections and part of Madeline's reason for leaving Chicago is the pull of her childhood and questions about why her mother abandoned her and why her grandfather refused to help. Also she is unsettled about her future and pending marriage. Soon after she arrives, she is seduced by the wild beauty of Lake Superior, and the quiet dramas of McAllaster and the people who live there begin to give her life a new structure.  I liked how the author drew her characters, simply and realistically, yet revealing their underlying complexity, and of course I loved the descriptions of the natural world, the weather, the seasons, the quality of light unique in proximity to a great lake or ocean.

"Gladys knew very well that Madeline was not like her mother. Jackie had been careless and selfish and immature from the day she was born and obviously Madeline didn't fit that bill. But still, every now and then, Gladys felt a deep stab of uncertainty at what she'd done, pleading with Madeline to come help them, bringing her into their home. Why had she done it, why had she not left well enough alone?"

"Madeline found the cabin, a low-slung building made of massive logs, around a curve in the shore of the vanished lake. In the years of neglect the cedar-shake roof had rotted, exposing the structure to the elements. She ran a hand over the logs and pushed open the front door, which hung by a broken hinge. The interior was nearly empty and the wide plank floor had begun to rot like the roof....She settled her head against her backpack, closed her eyes, and basked in the sun, listening to the buzzing of flies and calls of ravens and jays, the insistent hammering the woodpecker. Smelled the pungent wild roses that were blooming all along the back wall of the cabin. She felt drowsy and relaxed, as happy as she'd been in a long time. "

Up North in Michigan...a good story.