Evergreen Tidings From The Baumgartners, Gretchen Anthony, author, Donna Postel, Andi Arndt, Eric G. Dove, narrators
The book takes place in Minnesota. Minnesota is unique. With extreme weather a certainty, the citizens usually depend on, and help, each other. Basics are stressed, rather than the material life. Additionally, there is an unwillingness to voice an opinion which might offend outright, so there is often a great deal of passive-aggressive conversation with a pull me, push me kind of narrative. Minnesota is a place where people avoid confrontation, where people obey the rules, have faith in G-d, and are more concerned with family life than most other things.
Violet Baumgartner is an overbearing and a bit over-confident wife and mother. She is busy planning a party for her husband Ed’s retirement and her sense of herself is enough to make one smile. She is authoritative and somewhat of a know it all. When the results of all of her hard work and planning for a beautiful sendoff for Ed actually go terribly awry, the consequences that arise are revealed with a wry wit that feels just short of slapstick comedy. The warts of life are exposed vividly.
Cerise Baumgartner has recently returned home after years away at school. With her, is her friend, Barb Hesse. Barb is really more than a friend, but Violet, Cerise’s mother, pretends that they are simply roommates. When Violet unexpectedly discovers that Cerise is pregnant, she decides that it is her right and duty to find out who the father is in order to make sure the child’s future is secure. When Cerise won’t reveal the intimate details of her pregnancy, Violet decides to try to discover them for herself. At this same time, she wants to make sure that everyone she knows believes that she is thrilled with the relationship between Barb and Cerise. She doesn’t want wagging tongues, but she knows the tongues will wag anyway. Violet is very controlling and intercedes herself into their lives, but with her knack for expressing herself, she makes her interference seem reasonable. Cerise concedes to her wishes, and mayhem is certain to follow.
While Violet is dealing with all this stress in her life, her friend Eldris confides in her about her troubles. Although she is planning the wedding of her son Kyle, she is a bit overwhelmed because the FBI is investigating his business venture. At the same time, her husband Richard has suddenly begun to disappear for long periods of time without explanation. He, like Ed, has recently retired. Eldris and Violet, unbeknownst to Ed, plot to use him to try to find out where Richard goes when he is MIA. Havoc ensues.
The little tidbits that are revealed throughout the book are alternately heart-warming and humorous as the character’s innermost thoughts are revealed. They each have their own set of fears and insecurities that they keep hidden from public view. Although Violet seems to be consumed with the effort to move all the people in her life like chess pieces, in order to ensure that they make the right decisions, she also has her doubts about many things that are out of her control. Violet, though, is a piece of work, and by the end of the book, she will have endeared herself to every reader as she tries to exert her influence over everyone.
This novel is partly epistolary with the inclusion of the Xmas letters that Violet wrote yearly for about four decades. These letters are what truly reveal what has happened, in Violet’s life and the life of the Baumgartner family, but they also reveal the lives of other families and explore the way they all deal with their experiences. Violet can be over solicitous and overly involved in the lives of others, but she is convinced that she has been called upon to use her effort to benefit others, that it is her duty to keep everyone on the straight and narrow.
So many books today are about social issues. Most are written in a way that makes some readers feel uncomfortable. This is not one of them. This book contains both laugh out loud and chuckle softly moments. It also inspires thoughtfulness about the difficulties that we all face in life and the methods that we use to deal with them. Life’s conflicts, large and small, are handled so adeptly that it is impossible not to find some pleasure in their resolution while reading this novel. They are delicately described by the author so that they are revealed realistically and without judgment. The author always adds a touch of humor to relieve any tension that might be created. The novel brings up almost every experience a person might encounter in life, but even when it touches on a doleful subject, it is done with such a light touch that the reader is never forced to share the sadness but rather looks from afar and becomes as resilient as the characters do, as they adapt to each situation, most often with grace.
The author shares many subjects with the reader, like ordinary day to day events, parent/child relationships, husband/wife relationships, relationships between partners in same sex marriages, misplaced suspicion, infidelity, retirement issues, family conflicts and the unplanned debacles that often just arise. All aspects of parenting and child rearing, with its dangers and its pleasures, are examined. The reader is challenged to examine their own thoughts on relationships. In the end, like a bird, one has to know when the child is ready to leave the nest and make their own decisions, right or wrong. The reader is left with the optimistic view that life will go on, even after retirement.