When the torrential flooding of a river in Vermont kills their twin daughters, Laura and Terry Shedon stay together, somehow. Terry, a state trooper, was away hunting and blames himself for not being able to keep his family safe; Laura becomes fragile and unable to function. Yet somehow they survive this unthinkable tragedy. Two years later Laura wants to become a foster parent, and the state places a ten year old boy with them. Older than their girls, male, and black, Alfred isn't what Laura was expecting. Alfred, who's been in foster care since his mother chose men and drugs over him, is quiet and contained, a stark contrast in every way to Terry's beloved blonde daughters, and he can't find a way to connect with him. Terry has other problems anyway - always faithful to Laura, he meets a barmaid while taking a break from his hunting companions, and a connection's made. Their brief encounter leaves Phoebe pregnant, Terry's only chance to have another child.
Each chapter opens with a quote from a historical source (contemporaneous letters, or interviews from the mid '30s) about the buffalo soldiers - either soldiers themselves or someone involved with them - and that relates to the chapter. The chapters are written in third person from the perspective of each of the major characters.
The Buffalo Soldiers explores the nature of marriage and tragedy, love and family, the bonds between parents and children, and race - among other things. The title refers to America's first black cavalry regiment, created in 1866; Alfred is given a book about the regiment by a retired lecturer who lives across from the Sheldons, and it is his relationship with Paul Hebert and his wife Ruth, as much as with Laura, that gives Alfred a safe place to live.
For me the most interesting elements in the novel were the careless racism exhibited by almost all the secondary characters in this very white town (from the children who exclude Alfred from their play to the teacher who says she "treats all [her] students as if they were white," and the elderly women who tells Laura that "you can hardly tell he's African-American, he could just be a boy with a very dark tan!") and the way perception influences interpretation. Terry, who is already predisposed to think of Alfred as trouble (perhaps because of his race, his background, his law enforcement profession, or the fact that Alfred isn't his daughters), sees many things Alfred does in this light, and each thing reinforces his starting position. So when, for example, Terry discovers that Alfred has a cache of non-perishable food, he interprets it as part of a plan by Alfred to run away, further distressing his fragile wife, and concludes that Alfred must have also stolen money.
This is a physically imposing tome but was readable and involving. I prefer Bohjalian's earlier work, and this reminded me to revisit Midwives, the first of his novels that I read, but The Buffalo Soldiers is a good read on its own merits. - Alex
No comments:
Post a Comment