I read a lot of books I like and some that I like a lot and occasionally one that metaphorically causes my guts to combust because I love the book so much. “Inland” by Tea Obreht made my insides explode and whatnot. I get those great-art aches when I think about this book, and not just because of the book’s wells of sadness (which, unlike the book’s well of water, overfloweth) or how beautiful and elegant the writing is. I reckon the ache also comes from how thoroughly the novel attached the main players to me and how badly I wanted things to go right for those folk and from the literal ache a primary character feels when a ghost touches him and he is then imbued with a desire for whatever that ghost wants and from the knowledge that it is a narrow possibility at best that I’ll ever forge any sort of relationship with a camel, never mind the airtight kinship of the human and camel pairing in “Inland.”
There are two narratives in “Inland.” One is the life story of Lurie, who was brought to America when he was 6 and whose father died shortly after, making him an orphan and eventually a fugitive from the law. Before he’s a fugitive, he’s recruited to rob graves because his small child’s hands make it easy to retrieve treasures without unearthing the whole corpse. In the course of this work he discovers ghosts really like to bug him, and also he can be infected with a desire for what the ghosts desire. This sounds rough, but he does eventually get to be best friends with a camel. And it’s not as grim as ghosts and grave robbery and spending your adult life hunted by the law makes it sound: hilarity abounds!
The other narrative concerns a day in the life of Nora, a wry, witty, stubborn and perpetually thirsty frontierswoman. Her family’s well has run dry, and her husband is off on a mission to get water, one he should have returned from days ago. Her two oldest sons soon leave the homestead, and only Nora, her ill mother, her youngest son, a teenage ward who claims she can speak with the dead, and Nora’s long dead daughter (whom, at least in Nora’s imagination, has continued to age despite dying as an infant) remain. Nora’s son and the medium insist they’ve seen a fearsome beast prowling their land. Nora is more concerned with the cattle baron who wants to move the county seat, which would be quite a blow for her community. Naturally, she writes a letter to the editor. Somehow this activism not only doesn’t solve her problem, but creates a new one.
The two stories intersect near the end for a perfect finish. I miss this book every day.
We’re all grateful that the Daniel Boone Regional Library, through the 2012 edition of the One Read program, made reading Obreht’s first novel, “The Tiger’s Wife,” mandatory for every literate, adult citizen of mid-Missouri. Were I a sheriff or judge, I would make reading “Inland” similarly compulsory.
