Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas

Genre: Historical Fiction 

Book Summary: Set on America’s home front during World War II, this story follows the coming-of-age of Rennie, who lives on a farm with her parents. When a Japanese internment camp opens up in her eastern Colorado town of Tallgrass, her predictable world is upset. When one of her friends is mysteriously murdered, attentions turn to the Japanese camp for the culprit. Throughout the novel, Rennie is forced to grow up as she deals with illness, racism, secrets, and war.

Indulgent Book Talk: There is one main element that I think Dallas did really well with the writing of this novel, and that is her ability to make you discover what’s going on right along with Rennie. The first person point of view helps with this. As a reader, Dallas compels you to assume what Rennie assumes. Her thought processes and internal dialogue become yours. Her discovery of the truth becomes your discovery of the truth. I never felt, as a reader, that I knew more than Rennie did. For this novel, I think this works very well. By saying this, I don’t mean to disparage any book that behaves differently, only that I found this unique, interesting, and it worked quite well for Dallas’s purpose. It also gave the book a more realistic feel to it; with subject matter that can easily tempt an author to be preachy, being in “real time” with Rennie’s internal struggles and dialogue helped the author to step out of the picture while still getting her message across.

I am always one to read the back of a book before diving into it. Granted, it often has about as much value as food packaging does, sometimes making it look much better than it is. Along those lines, I was somewhat amused at the end of the story that the marketing team called this book, “part thriller, part historical novel.” Historical novel is correct, thriller is not. If a quiet rafting trip from Lee’s Ferry is thrilling, then maybe this book is too, but the plot’s rising action happened in gentle bumps rather than rapids. So if you’re looking for something exciting and gripping that will keep you reading long past your bedtime, this won’t be the novel for you.

Glorifying Elements:  Much good in this book was celebrated: fairness, treating others (even enemies) with respect, self-control, the importance of family, and fidelity to one’s spouse. I particularly applauded Rennie’s change from wanting to fight the other school children for insulting her father for hiring Japanese farm workers to walking away from them, quietly, when they tried to provoke her. Adultery, abuse, racism, gossip, and selfishness were viewed with disdain and grief by the characters, and those sins always had negative rather than positive effects on the people they involved.

Also, although this book dealt with the rape and murder of a young girl, the author did not find it necessary to go into graphic detail about any of that. The reader understood what happened, but there were no grisly descriptions. That was something I really liked. The plot maintained its own interest without delving into anything obscene.

Worldly Elements: If this book were put to the big screen as it is, I think it would receive a rating of PG, maybe PG-13 depending on how graphic they wanted to make a last, pivotal scene (but the book wasn’t particularly graphic with it). 

There was very little inappropriate language, just a few occurrences of h*** and d***. The Lord’s name was not used in vain. There were was some use of racial slurs, but again, no glorification of that language. There were no scenes of sinful sex or gratuitous violence, but sex was talked about subtly, and violence was portrayed minimally. In a book in which the plot centers around a rape and murder, that is largely unavoidable.

Christianity did have a slight “stick in the mud” portrayal. Rennie’s mother was a serious Christian, her father was not, and her mother was portrayed as  more stubborn about allowing the Japanese to work for the farm (but she did give in). Many of the people who were racist against the Japanese were church-goers. Overall though, there was a sense that people who were truly followers of Jesus, like Rennie’s mother, did eventually do the right thing, even if they were initially intimidated by tradition or societal expectations. Most of this was portrayed through the lens of imperfect people, rather than suggesting that Christ was imperfect or wrong.

The other thing that was an undertone in the book was a general relativistic viewpoint, which, in much of modern literature, comes as little surprise to me anymore. A lot of this was fed in part by my reading of the author’s introduction; she obviously has this mindset. I wonder if I hadn’t read the introduction would I have felt the same way. I’ll never know. Still, I think a committed Christian can read this book, appreciate what good is portrayed, and remember that Christ is supreme.

General Recommendation: Yes. If you are looking for something gentle, easy, and yet thought-provoking, this is a good read. If you want something with a little more get-up-and-go, this would not be my first pick.