If you want to hear Minnesota authors launch their books, you can do so several nights this week. Here are some of your choices.
JOHN SANDFORD
“Saturn Run” (Putnam, $28) by John Sandford and Ctein was so gripping I was tormented because I had to do other things when I just wanted to grab that fat novel and read.
Sandford, of course, is my former colleague John Camp, author of the “Prey” and Virgil Flowers series. He and internationally known one-name photographer Ctein will be at Barnes & Noble, Har Mar Mall, 2100 N. Snelling Ave., Roseville, at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9.
It’s 2066 and America and China are competing to expand their space programs. China is on the way to Mars, supposedly on a scientific fact-finding mission but really to establish a permanent human colony. Then, a moving object that isn’t supposed to be there is seen near Saturn. Is it an alien colony? If so, what will happen when humans contact them?
China and the U.S. immediately refit their space ships for trips to Saturn. Whoever gets there first could take control of technology hundreds of years in the future for humans. Although the book’s authors explain the engineers’ problems with refitting the ships, which probably will fascinate the technology-minded, the focus is kept on humans with all their problems and frailties.
The U.S. ship, Nixon, is commanded by Naomi Fang- Castro, responsible only to President Amanda Santeros. The crew includes Crow, who is responsible for security and has connections in Washington; Sandy, a handsome rich guy who is supposed to be a videographer but is something else; and Rebecca Johansson, a brilliant engineer who needs to build a “power plant” to propel the ship.
So the spaceships race. Crow suspects there’s a spy on board the U.S. ship, and both the president and Fang- Castro’s brain trusts have to figure out what the Americans will do if the Chinese ship is stranded, because national politics on Earth are as important to the leaders as first contact in space.
Traveling vicariously with these daring space pioneers makes for a riveting read. Stephen King says: “(It’s) a book Michael Crichton would have enjoyed, but never could have written; he didn’t have Sandford’s gift of good humor and his uncanny ear for dialogue.”
And it isn’t a spoiler to reveal that it has a perfect ending.
SHERMAN ALEXIE
I almost interviewed poet, fiction writer and filmmaker Sherman Alexie in advance of his free reading at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 5, at Macalester College’s Kagin Commons, 1600 Grand Ave., St. Paul, with his friend and first publisher Bob Hershon of Hanging Loose Press. But through one of the snafus that occasionally happen with high-profile authors, we never connected. So, I’ll tell you what I know about him.
Alexie is an enrolled Spokane/Coeur d’Alene writer from Wellpinit, Wash., on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Hanging Loose Press published his debut poetry collection, “The Business of Fancydancing,” in 1992. That was followed by 11 more collections, including “First Indian on the Moon,” “The Summer of Black Widows,” and “Face,” all published by Hanging Loose.
Alexie’s interest in poetry began when he was at Washington State University where he was given an anthology of poems by Adrian C. Louis, a Paiute Indian. One was called “Elegy for the Forgotten Oldsmobile” and the first line was: “Oh, Uncle Adrian, I’m in the reservation of my mind.” Young Alexie was a reservation Indian and he knew that was what he wanted to do.
His fiction career was launched in 1993 with “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” and his novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian” won the 2007 National Book Award in young people’s literature.
Alexie is also an unapologetic social activist. He has spoken often about his disdain for Indian wannabes, white people who want to appropriate Indian culture. So it’s no wonder he spoke out against Rachel Dolezal, the woman who claimed to be black until her family said she wasn’t. And in March, he canceled speaking gigs at Notre Dame and the Kurt Vonnegut Library in Indiana because of pending legislation he called “hate laws” that discriminated against gays and lesbians.
Alexies’ recent flap involved his guest editorship of “The Best American Poetry,” when he left in a poem he knew was written by a white man who submitted it under the pseudonym Ye-Fen Chou.
Bob Hershon has written 12 poetry collections, including “Calls From the Outside World” and “The German Lunatic.” His work has been published in national literary journals, and he serves as executive director of the Print Center, Inc., as well as co-editor of Hanging Loose Press and Hanging Loose magazine.
LAURA CHILDS
Carmela Bertrand, owner of Memory Mine shop in New Orleans’ Garden District, stumbles across another murder in “Parchment and Old Lace” (Berkley Prime Crime, $25.95), 13th in Laura Childs’ scrapbooking mystery series.
Carmella and Edgar Babcock, her hunky detective- boyfriend, discover the body of a bride-to-be draped over a tombstone, strangled with a piece of old lace. Carmela is asked by the victim’s sister to look into the crime, although Babcock hates it when she’s involved in investigations. And there are a lot of people to investigate and suspect — the bridegroom, Edward, who might have been having second thoughts about the marriage; his awful mother, Vesper; maid of honor Naomi; old boyfriend Oliver Slade; and office mate Hugo Delton.
As Carmela gets closer to the truth, her shop is vandalized. She wonders if the killer lace came from a local art museum. Still, Carmela and her flamboyant friend Ava, owner of the local voodoo shop, find time to dress up, nosh on good food and gossip as they track suspects. This series is lots of fun.
Childs is the pen name of Gerry Schmitt, who will sign copies of the book from noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10, at Once Upon a Crime, 604 26th St. W., Minneapolis.
SUE LEAF
Sue Leaf is one of the most elegant writers about nature and the environment. She shows her talent again in “Portage” (University of Minnesota Press, $16.95), a book of short essays about her 35 years canoeing lakes and rivers with husband Tom and, later, their four children. Beginning with a trip to the Boundary Waters in 1979, Leaf combines travel with natural and cultural history from provincial parks of Canada to the Louisiana bayou and the American West.
On the Upper Missouri River in central Montana, the Leafs ran into rain and wind that left water on the floor of their tent. Tom’s poncho leaked and he was in danger of hypothermia. It was the first time Sue had been really frightened, not only for her husband but also because they had children at home. But the sun came out and they continued, leaving her free to muse about how they always tried to “image the North American continent before Europeans began altering it in massive way.”
In the early 1990s, the couple returned to the Boundary Waters with three of their children. Although they chose a low-profile lake, Leaf was surprised at the human traffic. Campsites filled before noon, so they felt they couldn’t stop to peruse things the kids found interesting. Still, the kids had a good time, later remembering Grandpa rolling off a log and falling into the water without dropping his dinner plate.
Leaf writes: “Because they had no recollection of the Boundary Waters of twenty years before, the children were not disturbed by the filled-to-capacity wilderness. They didn’t fret about whether we would find an open campsite on our destination lake. They weren’t distressed by canoes off in the distance. They didn’t see the deeply trampled portage paths and wonder how many boots had pressed down upon the soil, exposing the gnarled tree roots. … Tom and I, however, had felt all of these stresses … we wondered how long the ancient portages, trails that had served the Ojibwe and voyageurs for centuries, could remain in use.”
Leaf will launch her book at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, at Tin Whiskers, 125 E. Ninth St., St. Paul, and 7 p.m. Oct. 20 at SubText Books, 6 W. Fifth St., St. Paul.
Mary Ann Grossmann can be reached at 651-228-5574.
