CONFLICTS OF THE DAY

Allen Eskins’ latest offering is a look at youth during a diffcult period of history

By Bruce richardson

Readers of this column might have noticed that Page Turner reviewers have occasionally recommended books by the same authors that they have brought to Austin in previous years. It’s because these writers continue to produce books that win recognition as national best sellers and by the Minnesota Book Awards nominations. Such is the case of Allen Eskins’ “Nothing More Dangerous,” one of this year’s nominees.

Usually, Eskins writes crime novels, and several crimes occur in this story as the central character eventually learns what happened to Linda Poe, a missing woman whom the authorities have claimed has embezzled thousands from the local manufacturing company. But the book is more a “coming of age” story of Boady Sanden, a 15-year-old boy discontent with loneliness and school. He is planning to run away. Boady lives in a rural area of a small Missouri town with his widowed mother. A handicapped, retired neighbor is his chief friend until a boy his age moves in across the road.

Eskin’s book title comes from a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., “Nothing is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” Boady lives in a dangerous time and place.

He lives in rural Missouri in the 1960s. Race relations are tense as the white community undergoes historic changes. Boady’s new neighbor is the son of an African American family from Minnesota. This boy’s father has become the new manager of the town’s major production plant where the theft occurred. The boys friendship is tested when Boady uses insensitive racist expressions that offend the new neighbor. Boady is a product of his culture’s racial attitudes and isolation.

As a rural transfer from a nearby town, Boady lacks connections as a freshman in a new school. When he interferes with an abusive attack on a Black girl, he incurs the revenge of the school’s bully, the son of the plant’s previous manager who is stirring racial unrest to protect himself. Boady helped the girl not because she was black girl, but because his character made him respond to cruelty.

Thomas, the new neighbor boy, and Boady develop a strong friendship in spite of both boys’ unconscious prejudices. They are willing to learn from each other, their similarities stronger than their differences. They share work, recreation, romance, and danger. In their wandering exploration of the rural area, they share the discovery of the murdered body of Linda Poe. Did this black bookkeeper embezzle the money and die for it or is her death an additional mystery?

Eskins has published four other books since coming to Austin and “The Life We Bury” is also set in the 1960s. The Ozark setting was where Eskins grew up.

The book captures the conflicts of youth, traditions, family loyalties, and social change.

TURN THE PAGE

If you like this book by Allen Eskins, you will also enjoy these books by him.

“The Guise of

Another” The first book featuring police detective Max Rupert.

“The Heavens

May Fall” Detective Max Rupert returns with attorney and the adult Boady Sanden.

“The Shadows

We Hide” Sequel to the “The Life We Bury” featuring Joe Talbert Jr.