4.5/5

“It was a summer in which death, in visitation, assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.”

This is how Frank Drum recalls the eventful summer of 1961. Frank, a young boy of thirteen growing up in New Bremen, Minnesota with his Juilliard-bound older sister Ariel, younger brother Jake , his WW2 veteran father who is a Minister and artistically inclined mother who shares her love and talent for music with her daughter. When the body of a young boy they know is found on the railroad tracks the whole town is left in shock, with speculation about the nature of his death. Subsequent deaths, some closer to home than others, result in suspicion and finger pointing among the townspeople with hidden secrets and not-so-hidden bias coming to the surface. What follows is a chain of events that not only impacts the lives of Frank and his near and dear ones but also his perceptions of life and death, family, society, his faith and the world in general.

“My father used to quote the Greek playwright Aeschylus. “He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

William Kent Krueger’s Ordinary Grace is a beautifully penned, profoundly moving story with a wonderful cast of characters with elements of small town drama, coming of age experiences and mystery. With simple but elegant prose the author touches upon themes of death, discrimination, sexual orientation, grief and loss, PTSD, faith and of course, grace. The author’s vivid description of a small town and the townspeople enriches the narrative making it possible to almost visualize the events as they take place . This is a slow paced novel but I never felt my attention wavering. I have to commend the author’s ability to voice the emotions of both the adults and the children without coming across as jarring or out of place.

“That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.”

I was enamored with William Kent Krueger’s writing after reading This Tender Land which was one of my favorite books of 2021. Many of my reader friends recommended Ordinary Grace and I cannot thank them enough. ( )

Summary: Two boys in a rural Minnesota town encounter a series of deaths, including one within their family, and discover something of the “awful grace of God.”

The writing of William Kent Krueger has been my discovery of this summer. How grateful I am for the person who recommended his work to me! Ordinary Grace is a standalone novel set in a rural Minnesota town in 1961. The story centers around Frank Drum, the narrator, and his younger brother, Jake. Jake stutters, and is often silent, but also always seeing and often insightful. Their father is a pastor, responsible for a three church charge. Their mother is a musician, once in love with the town’s music professor, Emil Brandt, who had returned from war blinded, physically and emotionally damaged, who lives with his sister Lise, a deaf spinster attached to Emil and to her garden. Instead, Ruth Drum ended up marrying Nathan Drum when he was ambitious to become a lawyer. War changed all that, a survivor of too many battles, having lost too many men, hearing a call from God amid the loss. Ruth tried to make the best of what she had not expected, living the life of a pastor’s life instead of being the spouse of an up and coming lawyer. Nathan came back with one of those he did not lose, Gus, who loves drink too much, gets into fights, lives in the church basement, getting by on odd jobs about the town. Surprisingly, Gus is a confidant of Nathan who he calls “Captain” and often advisor to the boys.

The other person in this circle is Ariel, the Drum’s daughter, just graduated from high school, a gifted singer and composer, headed to Juilliard, representing the unfulfilled dreams of her mother. She is dating Karl Brandt, nephew to Emil and son of the wealthy brewing family who live in a mansion at the top of the hill and drives a sporty convertible. At one point, Frank spots her slipping out in the middle of the night, returning before morning. Shortly after, she begins to reconsider her Juilliard plans.

The story spans a single summer, filled with a mixture of normal adventures, a scrap with Morris Engdahl, the town bully, at the quarry, where they get the best of him, and encounters with a mysterious Native American living in a shanty down by the river, Warren Redstone. It is also a story that progresses by a series of deaths to which Frank is a party–the first is Bobby Cole, a mentally challenged boy, struck by a train passing over a tressle near the town where Bobby was sitting. Then Frank spots the body of a mysterious stranger, an itinerant who had died. Redstone is nearby, but had nothing to do with the death.

The next death is the hardest. Ariel doesn’t come home after partying with friends following an event where a musical piece she wrote was performed. A desperate search follows but it is Frank who finds her spotting her body in the river. Engdahl, Redstone, and Emil all are suspects. For some mysterious reason Frank can’t explain, he lets Redstone escape when the authorities are in pursuit, probably saving his life.

The tragedy hits them all hard. Jake gives up on God. Ruth separates from Nathan, who represents the God with whom she is angry. The tragedy deepens with the results of the autopsy and the events that follow. The words of Aeschylus are used at one point, “the awful grace of God” and it is this Nathan wrestles with as he tries to grapple with this death and guide his broken family and flock. He says,

“‘I confess that I have cried out to God, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’…’When we feel abandoned, alone, and lost, what’s left to us? What do I have, what do you have, what do any of us have left except the overpowering temptation to rail against God and to blame him for the dark night into which he’s led us, to blame him for our misery, to blame him and cry out against him for not caring? What’s left to us when that which we love most has been taken?

‘I will tell you what is left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he’s given us complete control over them. Even to the darkest night it’s still within our power to hold to faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may ourselves feel unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who choose to discard them."

We see people wrestling with the hardest of tragedies and struggling to hold onto the ordinary graces of God as they face this “awful” grace–these seemingly inexplicable ways of God. People practice ordinary grace in all their brokenness–Gus and officer Doyle fighting and then forgiving, an outing on horses at Gus’s girlfriend Ginger’s farm, congregation members providing food, music, prayers. A moment when Ruth and Frank sit together on the tressle where he’d spotted Ariel’s body, and grieve and extend comfort to each other.

The phrase “ordinary grace” is actually used only once in the book. At a reception after the funeral services, Nathan is unable to offer a grace before the dinner, wordless in his own grief. People look at one another wondering who will pray. Jake, who has turned away from God, says he will. And he prays without stuttering. Frank recalls:

“That was it. That was all of it. A grace so ordinary there was no reason at all to remember it. Yet I have never across the forty years since it was spoken forgotten a single word.”

Jake never stuttered again, finding the miracle he needed to believe again.

Krueger plumbs the depths of the darkness of inexplicable tragedy, those places we are inclined to wonder where God is and to rail against God. In one sense, there are no answers to dispel the darkness. Yet Krueger leads us to believe that for those who hold on, there is the ordinary grace to go on, holding to faith, hope, and love. There is no grace to make life go smoothly and tragedy-free. Life is not like that. But Krueger, in these ordinary, broken people in a small town, reveals the unconditional love of God in the love they give each other, and the faith that turns to God in anger, grief, hope, and a prayer before a meal, in which a quiet miracle takes place. ( )

A joy to be within this place, perceiving it as Frankie. The "mystery" feels mysterious to the characters, but is obvious, even trite, to a reader of mysteries; however, the book is not truly a mystery, but an exploration of grace (duh), grief, and forgiveness, and does this well. ( )

I really wanted to know who killed Ariel and why. I already suspect who the father is and who the killer was but how it all fits together is beyond my ken. I can't wait until the book is over and I know how it ends.
The repetition is annoying and the length of the story unbearable. ( )

I really wanted to know who killed Ariel and why. I already suspect who the father is and who the killer was but how it all fits together is beyond my ken. I can't wait until the book is over and I know how it ends.
The repetition is annoying and the length of the story unbearable. ( )