Review: Heroes Of The Frontier

“There is proud happiness, happiness born of doing good work in the light of day, years of worthwhile labour, and afterward being tired, and content, and surrounded by family and friends, bathed in satisfaction and ready for a deserved rest – sleep or death, it would not matter.”

Thus opens Heroes Of The Frontiers, Dave Eggers’ seventh novel.

Set in rural southern Alaska, the novel evokes a sense of barrenness that reflects the physical landscape as well as protagonist Josie’s emotional landscape.

She arrives in Anchorage, Alaska, and Eggers makes it clear that this is a woman on the run – not from the law, but from her past.

The 38-year-old dentist lost her practice after being sued by a patient’s family for not diagnosing their loved one’s oral cancer soon enough. And then there’s the patient who was wondering whether he should enlist in the military and go to Afghanistan to serve and protect America: Josie encouraged him to do so but then, unfortunately for both of them, he never returned.

She is also dealing with the fallout of her breakup with Carl, the father of her children. While Carl and Josie never married, not long after their relationship fell apart Carl married another woman and is living happily in Florida where his career is on the upswing – and Josie can’t help thinking that Carl is doing much better personally and professionally after leaving her.

No wonder then that Josie decided to leave everything she was familiar with in comfortable Ohio for some place new. But when she finds herself in that caravan in Anchorage, the reality of what she has done hits her: she has two young children with her, $3,000 in cash, no job and nowhere to live except in a caravan.

With just her children, Paul and Ana, to keep her company for the bulk of the novel, Josie discovers that they are mature beyond their years. Eight-year-old Paul is the voice of reason and patience: he is like Josie’s best friend and personal assistant rolled into one. Five-year-old Ana is a mirror reflection of her mother on a bad day: stubborn, difficult, basically being a child. While Josie does not stamp her feet, she does down a large number of bottles of wine in quick succession.

Though Josie obviously needs to figure out her future, Eggers keeps returning to her past. It is in the flashbacks that we learn of Josie’s history. Josie had been handed a hard life, with her early childhood spoilt by circumstances, and a family disgrace ruining the rest of it; while her tumultuous relationship with Carl brought a brief peacefulness in the forms of Paul and Ana, Carl’s new married life continues to haunt Josie; the death of a patient, the lawsuit against her by the family of another patient, and losing her life’s work – her dental practice – has caused dents in Josie’s world, which may or may not careen out of orbit and into oblivion.

By placing his protagonist in the wilderness of Alaska, Eggers is essentially musing if individuals are able to find the centre of their own universes without external aid, or if modern life has us all caught in the imaginary hamster wheel we have created for ourselves while pretending we are getting somewhere (when in fact we are standing in the same place the whole time, frantically paddling).

In Anchorage, Eggers has Josie discover things about herself, and in turn, what our ancestors used to do: to be at one with nature and the environment, away from artificial applications.

In Josie, Eggers has created an Everywoman: an individual who, at 38, does not have it all together, who runs ideas by her eight-year-old son before making an adult decision, and who had to run away to the wilderness to decide what is appropriate for herself. Despite her flaws, or perhaps because of them, Josie is a character most of us can identify with.

Beautifully written, highly accessible and littered with powerful imagery of a stark landscape, Heroes Of The Frontiers is a work of art with subtle hints about the modern world. This is a book that needs to be read.

Heroes Of The Frontier

Author: Dave Eggers

Source : Star2.com