Lyrically written 'Red Rover' a compelling read

Deirdre McNamer's new novel is lyrical, in its structure as well as in its sentences. The plot rolls through time, with decades receding and returning like the tide.

McNamer begins with two young brothers riding their horses through the Sweet Grass Hills of Montana in 1927. The next chapter finds one of the brothers in peril during the Second World War. A few chapters later, it is 2003. Then its 1927 again.

As readers, we come to care about a dozen different characters. We see them through each other's eyes, see them in their old age, then as their younger selves on the day Charles Lindbergh flew over their tiny town. The title, "Red Rover," refers to the children's game, where you run full tilt and maybe you break through and maybe you don't. Maybe you hit hard against your neighbors' interlocked arms and you don't go anywhere at all.

The book succeeds by telling a compellingly clear story, allowing us to hear a variety of voices — while at the same time hinting at the sad and hidden parts of all those lives.

McNamer actually began "Red Rover" thinking it would be a biography, a factual exploration of her own family's sadness. Her uncle, who had been an FBI agent, died mysteriously in 1946.

She began her research seven years ago. (Back in the days when Americans could still view their government's records, she notes.) She used the Freedom of Information Act to get access to the FBI's investigation of her uncle's death — and she learned the official investigation was inconclusive.

McNamer realized she would never know if the FBI had more information. She would never know why the coroner told the newspaper one story but wrote something different on the death certificate. The coroner was dead by the time McNamer started asking questions.

So her book began as a search for the truth and ended up being almost entirely fiction.

McNamer came through Salt Lake City earlier this week on a book tour. At the King's English Bookstore, she took questions after her reading and kept on answering them as she signed books.

Several readers wanted to know how a fictional resolution to his brother's death affected her father. McNamer said, "It did matter some."

In order for fiction to succeed, she explained, it must amplify. A good novel makes life more complex. As she wrote, a small sliver of her family's truth became a frame for her to use, something on which she could hang all the other stories.

In reality her uncle's death was not resolved but she hopes her fiction amplifies his life.