Bleeding Kansas | Sara Paretsky

Bleeding Kansas | Sara Paretsky | A coming-of-age story with a punch of moral debate

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Bleeding Kansas

	Bleeding Kansas Sara Paretsky Putnam Adult, 2008 - 448 pages average customer review:based on 37 reviews view larger image
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Set in the Kaw River Valley where Paretsky grew up, Bleeding Kansas is the story of the Schapens and the Grelliers, two farm families whose histories have been entwined since the 1850s, when their ancestors settled the valley as antislavery emigrants. Today, the Schapen family, terrified by the lawlessness of the 1970s-when Lawrence was the most violent college town in the nation-has turned to that old- time religion for security. The Schapens keep a close eye on all their neighbors, most especially the Grelliers. They maintain careful track of everyone's misdeeds, printing the most egregious on their family website. When Gina Haring, a Wiccan, moves into an empty farmhouse and starts practicing pagan rites, the family members are so outraged that they begin an active harassment campaign against the Wiccans. The Schapens worry, too, about who stands better with the Lord: their family or the Grelliers. When a Schapen cow gives birth to what may be a "Perfect Red Heifer"-needed if the temple is ever rebuilt in Jerusalem-the Schapens feel convinced that God is indeed smiling on them. Despite parental cautions, the Grelliers' teenagers are enraged by the Schapens. All their short lives, they and the young Schapens have fought. One particularly angry confrontation causes Chip Grellier to be expelled from school and consequentlyto join the army. Chip's death in Iraq is the catalyzing event for momentous changes in the lives of not only both the Schapens and the Grelliers but of all the families in the valley. The powerful, climactic scene at Gina Haring's Samhain bonfire will forever haunt the reader.

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Near Miss

Sara Paretsky is, of course, best known for her V.I. Warshawski detective series, a series that has long chronicled the life of one of the best known female detectives in the world of fiction. Her readers, me among them, carry a little "character comfort" into each of the new books in that series and, like me, they may have been thrown a little off-stride by Bleeding Kansas, Paretsky's stand-along look at contemporary life in rural Kansas.

Bleeding Kansas centers around the state's Civil War era history, a time in which families in border states like Kansas had to pick one side or the other regarding the issue of slavery. No one was allowed to remain neutral, and the wrong choice often proved to be a fatal one when things heated up and neighbor turned on neighbor. The Grelliers, Fremantles and Schapens are three families whose Kansas roots are well documented all the way back to their arrival there in the 1850s. Although the three families strongly supported each other in the anti-slavery fight of those years, today they have little in common.

The Grellier and Schapen families still farm some of their original acreage but the only thing recalling the Freemantle past is the dilapidated old mansion of theirs that dates back to their earliest years in the state and is now being occupied by a free-thinking niece of theirs. By now, the Schapens have evolved into a family dominated by the hypocrisy and bigotry of the preacher who runs their fundamentalist Christian church. The Grelliers are trying to eke out a living from their farming and whatever other small business ideas they can use to bring in a little extra cash.

Times are tough economically and tensions are already high when Gina Haring, the Freemantle niece, moves into the old house to refocus her life after having suffered through a divorce in New York. Haring is the suspicious type and her "chip on the shoulder" attitude, lesbian relationship, and fascination with Wiccan ceremonial practices escalates community tensions to a new high.

Bleeding Kansas is Paretsky's look at what can happen in modern small town society when a cultural clash suddenly develops. She draws parallels between the conflicts of the mid-1800s involving pro and anti-slavery advocates and the modern clash between the local fundamentalists, represented by the Schapens, and the liberal women from Lawrence who join Haring in her lifestyle in their small community. Paretsky demonstrates that, emotionally, very little has changed and that people are still capable of physically attacking their neighbors over simple differences in politics or lifestyle.

Bleeding Kansas raises important questions and provokes thought on the social condition of modern America. It is not at all a bad book. But, as a novel, it does not entirely succeed in achieving the feeling of reality required to best get its message across because so many of its characters are almost cartoonishly extreme.Some of them, Jim Grellier, in particular, are almost too good to be true.Others, especially those characters representing the Christian fundamentalist sect in the book, are so blatantly close-minded and evil that it is at times difficult to take them seriously, lessening the impact of the book's message. This one is a near miss.

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A coming-of-age story with a punch of moral debate

The Schapen and Grellier families have lived next to each other for over 150 years and have been rivals for nearly as long. The Schapens cling to hellfire-and-damnation Christianity and judge their neighbors in the valley based on their misdeeds, publishing the juiciest scandals on their website for the entire world to see. The Grelliers are more open-minded and focus their energy on tending to their farm and raising their children, Chip and Lara. When divorced Gina Haring moves into the area, the fact that she is a lesbian and practicing Wiccan throws the area into outrage and the Schapens on a warpath. The families collide head-on in a battle of ideology. Bleeding Kansas is the story of life in rural Kansas and its reaction to modern, nonconformist ideas. The characters wrestle with life, love, death, rivalries, religion, and growing up in a world where modern ideas don't always mesh with tradition.

Paretsky's novel is set in the Kaw River Valley of Kansas, where she grew up. The depth of her knowledge of the area shines through in this work. Its small details bring the story to life: the corn stocks that grow so tall you can get lost in them, the scent of the earth and crops, and the vibrancy of Lawrence as the cultural center of the Midwest.

I chose to read this book because of the title. My husband and I lived in Lawrence for two years while he attended KU. I knew that bleeding Kansas referred to the state's involvement in the civil war. I was expecting a historical novel, which turned out to only partly be the case. Paretsky doesn't go into sufficient detail to explain the significance of events and places.

The Schapen tricked Lara into attending their Halloween "dance," which turned out to be an exorcism where they tried to force the devil out of her and make her come to Jesus. Bleeding Kansas is full of such complicated characters, radical religious beliefs, and deep plot lines. While not a page turner, Bleeding Kansas is an enjoyable read and a pleasurable look at what life is like growing up on a Kansas farm. It's a coming-of-age story packed with a punch of moral debate.

by Jennifer Melville
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

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Good, yet flawed

I found Sara Paretsky's Bleeding Kansas to be a good, yet flawed, novel. The story is interesting, if a little meandering. She does well depicting the isolation and sometimes overwhelming workload of life on a farm. The two teen characters that the story centers around are soul-searching and lost in the chaos that surrounds them, and I found myself rooting for them as they came close to finding each other. Other characters are not as strong, and frequently are merely exaggerations of flat character traits. The only interest they have for the reader are the complications they pose for the main characters. The writing is not strong, this is a genre-fiction writer's first attempt at literary fiction. While flaws like flat characters and stilted dialogue pepper this book, the potential is there. The story line and themes explored make for a good read, while the flaws detract from the story they don't ruin it altogether.

Her depiction of Wicca is negative and not accurate, however she is fair. Her depictions of fundamental Christianity and Orthodox Judaism are also negative, and some may argue inaccurate as well. The depiction of fundamental Christians is rather scathing, in fact. Her depiction of Wicca betrays a lack of research on the writers part, in her portrayal of Wiccan rites. The Wiccan character herself is not a positive character, and in the only scene I found downright offensive she does nothing to defend herself or her chosen path when another character off-handedly calls it "Wiccan nonsense". She almost seems to agree with him.

Where her greatest strength is in this book is the depiction of farm life, she knows the details and minutia of running a farm and including that really pulls the reader into the life of her characters. In the end, that's what it's all about. If you can't sit down with a piece of fiction and feel like you are there, the writer has not done her job. Sara Paretsky did her job with this book, but I feel she is capable of more.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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