Red Earth, White Earth - Hardcover

Weaver, Will

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671619772 ISBN 13: 9780671619770

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1986

Synopsis

After starting a business in Silicon Valley, Guy Pehrsson is brought home to the family farm in Minnesota by an ominous letter and he finds the unambiguous world of his childhood shattered

About this title

Reviews

YA Unresolved relationships with his family and friends and a heritage of farming come into focus when Guy Pehrsson, a California computer entrepreneur, returns to Minnesota 12 years after he ran away at age 18. His childhood ``blood brother,'' Tom Little Wolf, a Chippewa Indian, is now a tribal lawyer intent on reclaiming farmlands mishandled in past treaties, lands which include the Pehrsson's homestead. This conflict tests but never breaks the bond between the two men. Guy puts his life in perspective and sees that he and the men in his family have often used land or machines to distance themselves from people. This apocalyptic first novel is rich in the colors and characters of contemporary rural Minnesota, and spiced with Indian lore and legend. Back country road shenanigans with cars and tractors and sheriffs and Indians add a touch of Dukes of Hazzard to the story. Characters who are able to laugh at themselves also add comic relief to a sensitive and moving novel of a man's emotional growth.Keddy Outlaw, Harris County Public Library, Houston
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this sprawling first novel of whites versus Native Americans in modern-day Minnesota, Guy Pehrsson returns from California's Silicon Valley to "save" the family farm. He finds his French-Canadian mother, Madeline, living with his boyhood chum and high school basketball teammate, Chippewa activist Tom LittleWolf. Guy's modernization-crazed Norwegian father, Martin, has mortgaged the family farm to the hilt, while his thrifty, wheelchair-bound grandfather, Helmer, borders on death. Disputed land titles quickly lead to nighttime guerrilla warfare between threatened white farmers and downtrodden reservation Indians with Guy, the semi-outsider, caught in the middle. A strong and fine sense of the Upper Midwest as a distinct geographical region permeates this melodramatic epic that is scheduled to be a TV mini-series. Character development is adequate to very good. Highly recommended for public libraries. James B. Hemesath, Adams State Coll. Lib., Alamosa, Col.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1986
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0671619772
• ISBN 13: 9780671619770
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 383