October 24, 2016
Smith’s terrific new novel opens with a brutal 1985 attack on a family in a small South Dakota town, then flashes back to 1950 when the husband (a WWII pilot) and his wife first left New York City with their two small children for a new life in Rapid City, Iowa. Cal and Betsy Kusek, invited west by a fellow veteran and sponsored by his parents, appreciate the hospitality, but the virulent fear of communism—just being a Democrat raises suspicion—among the locals shocks them. Although he’s an attorney, Cal builds a ranch while Betsy helps the local doctor as a visiting nurse. She worries, though, that her flirtation with the Communist Party will hinder Cal’s burgeoning political career. Smith illuminates the force of McCarthyism-generated fear in the Midwest and effectively personalizes it through the persecution the Kusak family endures for their liberal beliefs. The author also skillfully ties together the two time periods, avoiding melodrama. Agent: Molly Friedrich, Friedrich Literary Agency.
November 15, 2016
In 1950, an idealistic New York couple and their two kids resettle on a cattle ranch in South Dakota only to find their initial success undermined and destroyed by right-wing fanatics in a novel based loosely on the actual case of a family victimized by anti-Communist hysteria in Okanogan, Washington, during the McCarthy era.As the novel opens in 1985, Jo Kusek returns after 20 years to Rapid City under heartbreaking circumstances: a home invasion has left her younger brother Lance's wife dead, Lance and his young son in critical condition. Smith (A Star for Mrs. Blake, 2014, etc.) then cuts to 1950: 4-year-old Jo and baby Lance arrive in Rapid City with their parents, Cal, a 42-year-old Yale-educated sometime union lawyer and WWII fighter pilot, and nurse Betsy, who briefly belonged to the Communist Party in her teens. They've decided to start over in Rapid City, where Cal's Army buddy Scotty Roy lives. Quick learners, the Kuseks buy a spread and, despite total agricultural ignorance and inexperience, are soon among the most successful ranchers in town. Democrat Cal also builds an increasingly successful political career for himself in heavily Republican South Dakota. But religious bigotry (neighbors wonder if they're Jewish, though they're not) and virulent anti-communism flourish alongside neighborliness in Rapid City until xenophobic fearmongering turns all the Kuseks' lives upside down. Unfortunately, by painting Cal and Betsy as such maddeningly superior individuals--"There were no jobs, really, either one couldn't perform"--compared to the narrow-minded, cartoonishly dimwitted but more colorfully portrayed locals, Smith diminishes both the political and personal drama. Although the novel returns in intervals to the 1985 crime, there is little suspense in the episodic reveal, and the connections between events in 1985 and 30 years earlier, meant to create drama, feel manufactured at best. A tragedy built on accumulating misunderstandings between people of different political persuasions should be riveting in this political season, but flat prose and a self-righteous tone make for a dreary read.
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December 1, 2016
It's the phone call you never want to get. Smith's novel opens on Christmas Eve 1985 with Jo Kusek driving from the airport in wintery conditions to a hospital in South Dakota. Someone bludgeoned her sister-in-law, Wendy, to death and left for dead her brother, Lance, and nephew, Willie. Who would commit such a horrible crime in the small community? As Jo worries about her critically injured relatives, she ponders who would want to hurt them. Could it somehow be connected to her family's ranch? Her father's political career? Her mother's brief time as a member of the Communist party? Her parents' trial to clear their reputations? Could it be someone she knows? Smith's novel weaves smoothly between Jo in the hospital nervously waiting for answers and her family's epic backstory. It is a moving tale of the Kuseks' trials and triumphs as Calvin Kusek transferred his family from New York City to Rapid City, becoming a rancher, politician, and lawyer. VERDICT The author of the FBI Special Agent Ana Grey series (North of Montana) and A Star for Mrs. Blake successfully switches genre gears once again with this dramatic saga with a hint of mystery. Her fans won't be disappointed.--Susan Moritz, Silver Spring, MD
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from December 1, 2016
Smith's (A Star for Mrs. Blake, 2014) second historical novel delves into the McCarthy era and how one family is swept up in its fanaticism. Cal and Betsy Kusek leave their hectic lives in New York City in 1950 to settle on a ranch outside Rapid City, South Dakota, and four years later they're considered valued members of their community. Cal is a partner in a local law firm, and Betsy and their two children, Jo and Lance, manage the ranch. Smith alternates between this setting and scenes in 1985 in a Rapid City hospital when Jo returns to visit Lance and his son after they have been brutally attacked. The intervening years are filled with Cal's shift to politics, election to three terms as a state representative, and run for the U.S. Senate against a religious, fiercely anticommunist zealot with his own radio show. When Betsy's brief stint, decades earlier, as a Communist Party member comes to light, the election is lost as voters in one of the most virulently anti-Red states turn against the Kuseks. Smith perceptively brings this dark period in U.S. history to light in her dramatic family saga based on a true story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)
April 24, 2017
Smith’s standalone, inspired by the real-life mass murder of a family in 1980s Seattle, follows the fateful adventures of fictional WWII hero Cal Kusek and his wife Betsy, who, unhappy in 1950 Manhattan, seek greener pastures for their children, Jo and Lance, on a ranch in Rapid City, South Dakota. Though a very blue family in very red state, they manage to find happiness until Cal, a lawyer as well as a rancher, is urged to run for the U.S. Senate. His opponent, Thaddeus Hayes, is a deceptively friendly, fear-spreading loudmouth liar who tries to turn the town and the state against Cal and Betsy. His careless use of the word “traitor” tips over the first in a long line of dominoes that eventually leads to the 1985 spree killing that bookends the novel. Reader McClain, a Daytime Emmy Award–winning actress, initially establishes a solemn mood, with the adult Jo returning to her hometown after the murders. When the plot hops back to the ’50s, with the Kuseks meeting their new friends and neighbors, some with distinctive rural accents, McClain switches to a more upbeat tone, and she expresses more extreme emotion during the family’s highs and lows. McClain provides the faux good ole boy Hayes and another key antagonist, a sociopath slacker with the memorable moniker Honeybee Jones, with voices that ring with villainy. A Knopf hardcover.