The Way It Went

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In THE WAY IT WENT, novelist Ben Schwartz weaves a beautifully elegiac history of a midwestern farm family from the 1930s to the present. Acknowledging that family histories are as much fiction as fact, the novel offers different voices and versions, mainly three erudite, articulate women, schoolteachers all. The chief character, Elspeth, begins the history: her childhood in Missouri, her years in college. And then, after World War II, meeting Avery, the soldier she will marry, whom she brings home to Missouri. There are strong male voices as well, especially Ned, brother of the soldier, who details the backstory of their North Dakota family. Thus we come to know the struggles of Avery, a loving, genial man deeply wounded by war, through the narratives spun by mother, wife, brother, sister-in-law, and mother-in-law. In twelve chapters spanning sixty years, the author builds a luminous, multifaceted exploration of a family appraising their love for each other-needs, wants, satisfactions, missteps, failings. What emerges is a deeply moving requiem for a land, a people, and a time past but treasured.