Fourth of July Creek

A Novel

By: Smith Henderson

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews, Jenna Lamia

Length: 15 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral 11-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face-to-face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times.

But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the FBI, putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.

In this shattering and iconic American novel, Smith Henderson explores the complexities of freedom, community, grace, suspicion, and anarchy, brilliantly depicting our nation's disquieting and violent contradictions. Fourth of July Creek is an unforgettable, unflinching debut that marks the arrival of a major literary talent.

©2014 Smith Henderson (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers

Though it can leave the reader bruised

Any additional comments?

Very, very well written. It was hard to turn this one off - because the story took so many twists and turns I was never sure what was going to happen next. It was fairly emotional listening - at times I felt as battered and bruised as the main character - but that's what good writing is all about - engaging the reader - right???

Dark, but very well written

Would you listen to Fourth of July Creek again? Why?

Sure. The colorful similes, metaphors and illustrative writing was a treat to my ears.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Rose. I've got teenagers and remember making all sorts of bad decisions at that age.

What does MacLeod Andrews and Jenna Lamia bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

The Jenna chapters were outstanding. The woman has talent! So does, Andrews. He captured the characters well and was an outstanding narrator. He's no Bronson Pinchot, but he's got chops.

If you could take any character from Fourth of July Creek out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Pete. I like to drink.

Good listen

Good easy listen, sadly it did not make me crave to finish. I still suggest it, it was a good month I took just putting it on in the car

Bleak LIfe in Montana

Any additional comments?

This is a grim book reminiscent of Russell Banks’ brooding books of boyhood in New Hampshire (e.g. Affliction). Told from the perspective of Pete, a Montana Department of Family Services caseworker who himself would be a prime candidate for psychiatric services, the book details the travails of Pete’s broken family, run away prostituted daughter, on the lamb brother and more centrally Jeremiah Pearl and family. Pearl has banished himself to the Montana wilderness on the strength of his wife’s vision of the end of the civilized world. Pete encounters Benjamin Pearl when he wanders into a local school. Jeremiah’s son is in bad shape, undernourished and wearing threadbare clothes – life in the Montana wilderness is no picnic. Jeremiah snatches him back and rejects any assistance from Pete. It is quickly apparent that Pearl is a right wing nutcase though exactly how much his act is composed of real violence and how much bravado is unclear until the book’s conclusion. When confronted with a dinosaur bone Benjamin finds (there are such bones in Montana) Pearl insists the earth is six-thousand years old and that such “evidence” of prehistoric remains are the work of Satan. Typical of survivalists who surround themselves with guns, Pearl believes the dollar is fiat currency that will soon collapse. He drills holes in the heads of presidential coins and dresses them up with minute symbolism including swastikas and ZOG (Zionist Occupational Government). The coins are popular with fellow right wing travelers in the Northwest. The feds move in to try to find Pearl. In their search some are decent but a few treat the locals, including Pete, with disdain and occasional violence lending credence to the arguments of Pearl and his ilk. The book is bleak, no way around that, but the plot holds together with a bit of a conclusion that wraps things up albeit somewhat on the pull it out of the fire before it melts side of things. Pete goes on with his work although his life is shattered and the lives around him are likely only temporarily in tenuous equilibrium.

absolute must read

i can safely say that this has been my favorite book that i have read this year...and probably up there in my top reads in the past few years. this book was so heavy. and so amazing.

what an incredible cast of characters. most of which you rooted for even though they weren't all that 'good' in a conventional sense. there was such a deep sadness that rooted through every single person the story encounters. sadness and despair. each of the families (children) that the main character, Pete, is tasked to help as a social worker are desperate and depressed sometimes depraved.

i don't know what to say. i loved it so much it was one of those books that i never wanted to end.

Stunning, haunting, and sad

Where does Fourth of July Creek rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top 20%

What did you like best about this story?

Pete was the most interesting character. But by the far the most gripping/haunting parts were the Pete/Rose chapters.

What does MacLeod Andrews and Jenna Lamia bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Andrews is probably the best narrator I've heard. The first time he has an outburst as Benjamin Pearl I jumped in shock in my car.Lamia totally steals the show. You want to jump through the speakers and hug her and tell her it will all be ok.

If you could take any character from Fourth of July Creek out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Ha ha. Pete and the old man who takes in foster kids are probably the only ones who wouldn't tell you to go to hell or hold a gun to your face. But I'm not even sure about that. I'm going to say Rose because she would probably need the meal.

Any additional comments?

Incredible book. I think if you look at the reviews that are lower than 5 stars you'll see that most of them just found the book too depressing. That's not really the same as saying it wasn't a good book.

Page turner...but that’s about it

It’s an addictive, page-turner-type book, in that MFA style—but with several caveats. First, as the novel is in that MFA style, it displays many of the hallmarks of that machinery. Like many almost every book from the mill, there’s this terrible tension between an author who wants to write about the down-and-outs of society, but also wants to be the smartest guy in the room (its almost exclusively male writers who do this). This means that characters with little or no education give way to speaking like middle-class, white, well-educated men (much like the authors of these works). You can’t have it both ways. The interstitial sections featuring the Rachel-dialogues are the worst for this. They are so overwritten and you can really see an author chafing at the bit that he put in his own mouth.

Second, I can’t seem to get past the fact that the racism and anti-Semitism in the book is so footnoted. The character carving swastikas and the most trite, cliched anti-Semitic tropes into coins comes off as—at best—a sympathetic character—at worst—the hero of the novel. I’m all for novels containing unsavory characters and I am not asking for some bow-tie ending where he gets his comeuppance or (worse) a character I “relate” to, but the fact that this aspect of the character is all but forgotten as the novel winds down leaves a questionable taste in one’s mouth. The only Jewish character in the novel is a “combative Jewish reporter” from New York who arrives and leaves in a single sentence after brick is thrown through his window. Again, I get that that is the tenor of the characters of the novel, but this sole appearance peddles one too many stereotypes for my liking—and this character resides in the mouth of the narrator, not the mouths of the racist characters. I would give the benefit of the doubt to the writer here, but then there’s the Native Americans in the novel that are drunken caricatures in all instances. Again, I would give benefit of the doubt in most cases, as (having lived in Montana for many years) this is largely the stereotype many hold. However, most of these caricatures come by way of the third person narrator. The metaphors, in particular, that trod out fairly questionable stereotypes of Native Americans almost always come from the narrator and not the characters. Cumulatively this all left a pretty rough taste.

Finally, there are just beguiling historical and contextual inaccuracies and improbabilities everywhere. For one, I found the crusade against money to be the most interesting part of the book. Not the anti-Semitic roots that the characters ground it in, but the idea is compelling. However, the character that pushes these crusades, a “genius” the narrator tells us, nevertheless gets key dates and facts wrong about the history of money. To take one example, the gold standard was rescinded in 1971, not in 1933 as the character says. Again, I get that Pearl can be wrong and that he’s nominally “crazy,” but he’s right on the rest of the history, so this oversight seems to be on the author’s part. Furthermore, the character is a fundamentalist Christian who nevertheless quotes Nietzsche (“I am dynamite”) Anyone who has read Nietzsche (a bombastic atheist) and met a Christian understands that this combo doesn’t work. The character of Pearl is so clearly modeled on Zarathustra—the man who came down from the mountains to proclaim, in the market no less, that God is dead. This inspiration for Pearl’s character (and his direct quotes from Nietzsche) just doesn’t work. This goes back to my initial problem regarding the desire of a certain type of author to want to be the smartest man in the room. So you’ve read Nietzsche, great. But to shoehorn him into the novel is such a careless manner suggests a lack of understanding of both Nietzsche and fundamentalist Christians.

This is all to say nothing of the women in the novel who are all drunks, addicts, sex workers, and cheaters. While having a semblance of agency (in a forced woke way), that agency is only acted upon to sleep with the male characters or betray them. It’s just lazy and old fashioned.

Captivating and brilliant performances.

I really enjoyed this audio book. The narrators brought the characters to life with vivid and compelling performances allowing me to lose myself in this masterfully written story.

Great narration performances!

Where does Fourth of July Creek rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I've listened to many, but this ranks in my top 5!

What other book might you compare Fourth of July Creek to and why?

The Help, also because of the amazing narrations.

What about MacLeod Andrews and Jenna Lamia ’s performance did you like?

Everything.

If you could hear me, I am applauding!

If you could sum up Fourth of July Creek in three words, what would they be?

Phenomenal book! Well written, well read. It broke my heart and gave me joy. It is a literary masterpiece in the style of John Steinbeck. Wide open and tense.

What did you like best about this story?

The storyline was spot on.