Powerful and wholly original,Prudenceis a story of desire, loss, and the search for connection in a riven world; of race and class in a supposedly more innocent era. Most profoundly, it’s about the secrets we choose to keep, the ones we can’t help telling, and whom - and how - we’re supposed to love.
On a sweltering day in August 1942, Frankie Washburn returns to his family’s rustic Minnesota resort for one last visit before he joins the war as a bombardier, headed for the darkened skies over Europe. Awaiting him are his hovering mother, his distant father, the Indian caretaker who’s been more of a father to him than his own, and Billy, the childhood friend who over the years has become something much more intimate. But before the homecoming can be celebrated, the search for a German soldier, escaped from the POW camp across the river, explodes in a shocking act of violence, with consequences that will reverberate years into the future for all of them and that will shape how each of them makes sense of their lives.
Powerful and wholly original,Prudenceis a story of desire, loss, and the search for connection in a riven world; of race and class in a supposedly more innocent era. Most profoundly, it’s about the secrets we choose to keep, the ones we can’t help telling, and whom - and how - we’re supposed to love.
Praise for Prudence-
‘What does it say about our troubled times - and David Treuer’s considerable talents - that his World War II-era novel speaks to the present moment in American history with more eloquence and complexity than the nightly newscast? Inequalities of race, class, gender and sexual orientation; the treatment of captured combatants; the Escheresque ethics of bombing civilians a world away; the culture that allows white people to shoot people of color with impunity; all this, and much more besides, resonates through Treuer’s tender and devastating book … A master class on suspense, shifting perspective and conflicting desire.’ Anthony Marra,The Washington Post
‘ Prudenceis … at once both blunt and hushed in tone, wielding a sledgehammer while walking on tiptoes … each new page breeds both familiarity and - partly because of that familiarity - the capacity to surprise … By taking us one step backward for every two steps forward, Treuer doesn’t just unravel the plot we might expect; he prompts us to interrogate the assumptions - racial, sexual and otherwise - that build up those expectations in the first place.’ NPR
‘David Treuer is a literary shape-shifter … true to form, his latest book,Prudence, is unlike all its predecessors- a tightly plotted hybrid fiction that combines elements of a mystery, a literary romance and a Greek tragedy.’ Chicago Tribune
‘So good that when you get to the end, you’ll want to reread the beginning to see how the author set his magic in motion … This gorgeously restrained novel has much to say about race, class, gender, sexuality, love and war through the stories of men and women whose fates become urgently important to us.’ More
‘David Treuer beautifully captures a place and an era … Treuer imbues mundane moments with reverence … And he masterfully weaves into the narrative minor characters who have major resonance.’ Seattle Times
