New Novel Recreates Hiawatha Myth for Modern Day

James Charles Harwood’s new novel Julia Island is a rollickingly humorous novel with some significant undertones that can take the fantasy of Hiawatha, alongside with Indigenous American stereotypes, quantum physics, and current American heritage, and mixes them all alongside one another to build an epic tale deserving of the two Longfellow and Kurt Vonnegut.

Harwood thinly disguises quite a few spots in Higher Michigan and other destinations in the novel, ranging from New York to California and Afghanistan. Visitors will take pleasure in pinpointing these destinations, all dealt with fictionally. There are even some thinly disguised celebrities who make cameo appearances.

At the coronary heart of the novel is The Chippewa Club, just north of the town of Joliette, in the Higher Peninsula. Below in the mid-twentieth century, a younger feminine club member fell in love with a mysterious Ojibwa guy who was never noticed once again. The fruit of this union was young Hiawatha, who grows up at the club, an idyllic wilderness environment the place he is able to show the competencies and know-how of his Ojibwa ancestors, come to be a hero to the younger white club users, and eventually get the really like of a young maiden from Chicago, daughter of wealthy environmentalists. The outcome is an epic wooing and a colorful wedding day that skillfully engage in off of Longfellow’s primary. In this article is just a temporary passage about the starting of Hiawatha’s marriage with Kelley Eco-friendly to give you a perception of Harwood’s style:

“Later in lifestyle, the sonnets were to be reserved for Kelley Environmentally friendly, who shared the same hippy heritage and Club privilege. Kelley was a summer months resident, introduced by her moms and dads for very long vacations from Chicago. A boy or girl of dilettante artisans, she hadn’t blushed when Hiawatha smiled in amusement at her ironic identify. Her reaction was ‘Oh, I am the blessed a single. They named my sister Continue to keep America.’
“And so their romantic relationship, founded on prevalent floor and nourished by humor, matured into an abiding mutual regard. Kelley was thoughtful, dainty, imaginative, and perceptive, and virtually as tuned in to her surroundings as Hiawatha was.

“Kelley worshiped Hiawatha at a distance for a long time before he appeared to get notice. He had recognized all along, of class, his inscrutable Chippewa demeanor belying his interest. So, their relationship savored the bedrock of knowing and loving each and every other very long just before the spasm of puberty accelerated their attraction. Each September, Kelley returned to Chicago and college. Hiawatha, owing to the influence and electric power of Good Daddy, was spared public faculty instruction. He may possibly have been the initial fully homeschooled youngster in the Higher Peninsula of Michigan, absolutely the only transcendentally educated a single.”

In the to start with half of the novel, the poetic prose invites audience to suspend their disbelief. Near tremendous-human characters, superb deeds, and hundreds of Excellent Lakes lore all appear together to poke fun at stereotypes, celebrate the Upper Peninsula, and expand Higher Michigan literature to new proportions.

Having said that, the idyll finishes for Hiawatha and close friends when a tragic hearth will cause them to flee to protection at the remote Julia Island, a mysterious put that will at some point draw them back again all over again and once again with astonishing outcomes. But initially, right after the fire’s devastation, Hiawatha and his household acknowledge an invitation from two of the wealthy club customers to stop by them in New York. I will not get into all of their adventures in the Large Apple, but I won’t be able to resist expressing that probably my most loved section of the entire e-book was when Hiawatha turned involved with a Broadway musical model of The Previous of the Mohicans-that presents you some strategy of how far-fetched, and but not, the tale can get at instances as it plays with stereotypes, whether of Indigenous People in america, the theatre, the Upper Peninsula, or any other location of curiosity that enters its pages.

The 2nd half of the novel shifts to a little bit far more severe tone, but the magic never ever fades and the ending is equally unpredicted and nevertheless by some means great for these types of a potpourri of a guide.

I would adore to say much more about Julia Island, but I imagine individuals just want to experience its mesmerizing magic for themselves. I will say that amid novels established in Upper Michigan, nothing at all else rather strategies the easy mythmaking, playfulness, and perception of place that Harwood blends jointly in these pages. Frankly, I am a bit jealous that I did not generate it myself.