This Tender Land

In 1932, orphans Odie and Albert O’Banion flee the Lincoln School in Minnesota, a state-run institution where Native American children face systemic abuse. Accompanied by their mute friend Mose and a young girl named Emmy, they navigate the Gilead and Mississippi Rivers in a canoe. On their way to St. Louis, they encounter drifters, faith healers, and struggling farmers broken by the Great Depression. The story follows their struggle to find physical safety, a stable family structure, and a place to belong.

Readers of historical fiction who appreciate the structure of an odyssey or a coming-of-age narrative will find this story attractive. It appeals to those interested in the domestic social landscape of the 1930s and the specific history of Indian boarding schools. After finishing, the reader holds a clearer understanding of how the American landscape during the Depression shaped individual identity and how abandoned children forged their own definitions of faith and kinship.