Fourth of July Creek

Smith Henderson

2014 • 466 pages

Ratings13

Average rating4.3

"After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral eleven-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face-to-face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times. But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the FBI, putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed. In this shattering and iconic American novel, Smith Henderson explores the complexities of freedom, community, grace, suspicion, and anarchy, brilliantly depicting our nation's disquieting and violent contradictions" --

Genre

Fiction

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Karen

This was a gripping story right up to the end. The main character, Pete Snow, is a likeable social worker with a huge district in Montana and a lot of personal problems. He becomes involved with a reclusive millennialist through trying to help the man's young son, who shows up in town malnourished and inadequately clothed one day. The main reason I didn't give this book a higher rating is that the story of the millennialist and Pete's personal problems get such big build ups that the ending feels abrupt and completely anticlimactic. Still, the setting of Montana in the late 70's/early 80's, the drinking habits and personal foibles of many of the characters, the impossible burden of keeping sane while taking care of kids in terrible circumstances, the paranoia of the federal government at the time of President Reagan's shooting–it all combines to make a really great read.

June 4, 2015