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| Jul 29, 2010 - 06:40 PM |
Queen City News - Helena's FREE Weekly Newspaper |
Helena, Montana |
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From page 52 through page 160, Winifred native Brad Bergum had me, hook, line and sinker. His tale of self-discovery and redemption in these chapters was creative, fast-moving and fresh. I could not put it down. Honestly, were this book a 100-page short story entitled, ?The Hope Box?, I believe it would receive, and deserve, strong critical acclaim.
I found myself lost in the workshop on the Andrews family farm. It is here that the core of the story resides. The story lives in the mind of Walter Andrews and inside the ornate hand-carved boxes he makes, one after the other, day after day, year after year.
?Photographs from Eaden? is told through the lens of Marcus Andrews, Walter?s son. It?s a good choice. Marcus allows the book to straddle generations in a way that allows for some pretty smart writing. In the critical middle section of the book, Bergum is up to the task.
Unfortunately, the beginning and ending of the book seem quite forced. So intent is Bergum on giving readers an accurate description of Montana that he loses the forest for the trees. I almost didn?t make it to page 52.
Most annoying were the dates. Bergum begins many chapters with a date ? month, day and year. It?s almost a contest. I kept having to flip back and forth to make sure I was keeping the dates straight. Not only was this exhausting, but it was unnecessary except to prove to the reader that the author knows what week the Class C football and basketball championships are held in Montana.
The title, ?Photographs from Eaden ? A Montana Story?, is too simple. True, our story starts with the discovery of a picture in the Eaden Mercantile and concludes with Marcus seeing that picture for the first time in a bar in San Francisco years later.
I kept reading only because Bergum is a Montana writer now living in San Francisco. Almost as if proving his theory about small-town Montana, it took me exactly one person to find a connection with the author. The day I got the book (he sent it to the Queen City News after interest was expressed in reviewing it), I asked a colleague of mine who grew up in Lewistown if she knew Bergum. Bingo. Montana is one really big small town. Fortunately, Bergum is a better writer than that, and his real story, the story of loss and fear and shame and hope, emerges from somewhere inside him and makes the book more than just a clever story ? at least for a while.
And had I stopped reading, I would have missed the wonderful middle section of the book. I would have missed the short story that should be the subject of this review, a very good story, hidden in an otherwise very average book.
I think Bergum could be a big writer from a small town. ?Photographs from Eaden? is not the easiest book to find, so I gave the copy he sent to the Lewis & Clark County Library. It?s worth a read and I hope will not be Bergum?s last.
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The Queen City News is published every Wednesday in Helena, MT, by Mossback Media, LLC.
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