As America entered World War I, xenophobia gripped the country. European immigrants to the United States became suspect. In Illinois, a mob of coal miners hanged German-born Robert Prager for alleged socialist beliefs. In Iowa, Gov. William Harding made it illegal to speak a language other than English, and by way of his Defense Counsels forced German-Americans to make patriotic oaths or suffer vigilante justice.
In this atmosphere, Michelle Hoover sets her ethnically tense second novel.
Inspired by a family photo and the legend of two aunts (young girls at the time) who disappeared from their bedroom late one night, Hoover spins the saga of Jon Julius and Margrit Hess, German immigrants who settle in Iowa, farm the land, raise a family and lose their two youngest daughters.
Who took them? Did they willingly flee? Did hateful neighbors contribute to their demise?
"I had long known that we had the surname 'Hess' in our family," Hoover writes about the genesis of the novel, "and when I was younger I was embarrassed by this connection to what seemed a terrible lineage. I wanted to understand that embarrassment, that idea of self-hatred that many immigrants who come from supposed 'enemy' countries, are taught."
Threading a tantalizing amount of unease and suspicion throughout the novel, Hoover tells the story through five characters. She starts with Nan, the oldest daughter, who forgoes marriage in order to care for her siblings after their mother dies. Next is Jon Julius, the patriarch, who elicits his neighbor's ire by straightening a stream that divides their properties. He is a proud but broken man who recalls his voyage to America, the forced denial of his heritage, and the death of his wife to the flu epidemic. "With the Harding proclamation," he laments, "we never could bury her in the churchyard with a German prayer. Never so much as inscribe HIER RUHT IN GOTT on a stone."
Lee, the middle brother, a man damaged by the war, and "gone slow in his thinking," is the most welcomed perspective in the story as he is the most dogged in the pursuit of his sisters. While back home the others chop wood and tend livestock, Lee walks the streets of Chicago, knocking on boardinghouses and sleeping in alleys.
Esther, the penultimate child, the persecuted sister and supposed instigator of the girls' disappearance, relates her side with an annoying peevishness. "Father was always quick with his slaps with me," she writes. "No one else, especially Myrle, who he treated like a queen." But though she aggravates, she does reveal important information about why and where she and Myrle disappeared.
The final point of view is Myrle's, a waif "so pale her veins seemed to ravage her skin." Her perspective lends scope to this atmospheric and engaging tale, which turns out to be as much about sibling rivalry as about mistrust and oppression.
Christine Brunkhorst is a Minneapolis writer and a member of the National Book Critics Circle.
BOTTOMLAND
By: Michelle Hoover.
Publisher: Black Cat, 294 pages, $16.
Events: With novelist Patricia Park ("Re Jane", 7 p.m. April 20, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls.; with Lucie Amundsen ("Locally Laid") and Hope Jahren ("Lab Girl"), 7 p.m. April 21, Excelsior Bay Books, 36 Water St., Excelsior. (Ticketed event.)
