Brendan Prairie by Dan O’Brien (review)

Reviews 413 finding a suitable mate agreeable to the long, hard journey to America ending with marriage to a virtual stranger. It is here where the story of twenty-one-yearold Hana Omiya begins in Yoshiko Uchida’s novel, Picture Bride. The arrival of women such as Hana changed the community of Japanese America from pre­ dominantly bachelor laborers to fam ilies seeking permanent settlement. W hile the literary theme of separation is widespread, almost a necessity throughout western historical fiction, the raw edge of Japanese-American histo­ ry is particularly rife with involuntary and unplanned disconnection. In her story spanning Hana’s life from 1917 through 1943, Uchida illustrates this severance with simple grace in many ways, clim axing at Topaz, a World War II internment camp in the Utah desert. Because readers are perhaps most familiar with racism regarding Native Americans, Uchida’s novel is an important voice for expelling the myth of “give me your tired, your poor” and the conception that all settlers follow ed a compass pointing westward. Unadorned by unnecessary complexity of subplot and m otive, the book carries readers along by the strong, emotional undertow of Hana and Taro’s conjoined life in Oakland, a life more often heart­ breaking than triumphant. If the sim plicity of the story is its strength, it is also its weakness. Readers would do w ell to further research the times of Hana and Taro’s fam ily and friends using other authoritative sources for a greater historical understanding. However, Picture Bride stands solidly as deeply felt narrative, a tale of admirable resiliency in spite of tragic and unjust circumstances. K a t h ie M e y e r P u l l m a n , Wa s h in g t o n Brendan Prairie. By Dan O ’Brien. (Riverside, New Jersey: Scribner’s, 1996. 255 pages, $22.00.) Dan O ’Brien’s latest novel might be called an eco-mystery. Its opening chapter introduces Special Agent Margaret Adamson of the United States Fish and W ildlife Service, a woman of many talents and as many virtues who returns to South Dakota from Colorado to give her yea or nay to Andy Arnold’s plan to fill six hundred acres of pristine meadowland with condominiums and a 220room hotel. The first chapter also mentions B ill Malone, Agent Adamson’s old friend and flame. Once an ardent and influential environmentalist dedicated to protecting gyrfalcons, M alone is burned out, physically and em otionally maimed, and at war with him self and his past. Finally, the first chapter ends with a monkey-wrenching murder that stops Andy Arnold short, casts suspicion on M alone, and sends Agent Adamson in search of both lost love and eco-terrorists. Brendan P rairie is a good but predictable mystery. O ’Brien’s plot has suffi­ cient twists and turns to engage most readers, and he deftly avoids the red her­ rings that plague too many contemporary mysteries. Occasionally, flashbacks that 414 Western American Literature seem related to Agent Adamson’s murder investigation merely offer information about the past she and the prime suspect, Malone, have in common. Also, a few of the supporting cast— in particular, the self-sacrificing Cooney Jenkins and the too-precious gay couple who runs a local casino— are flat, stock characters. What is especially worthwhile, however, is the falconry. O ’Brien’s passion­ ate descriptions of M alone nursing an injured gyrfalcon and the numerous pages given over to descriptions of falcons in training, falcons in flight, and falcons in attack are inspiring, informative, and quite simply, fun to read. Arguably as much a book about environmental protection as murder, as much about the ancient art of falconry as land development, Brendan Prairie clearly attempts too much in too few pages. Still, Dan O’Brien tells a good yarn, his love o f wild America is contagious, and his knowledge o f birds o f prey is captivating. R o b e r t H e a d l e y I ' S o u t h e r n S ta te C o m m u n it y C o l...