Brian Kimberling's Snapper Showed Me Indiana

While I'm not a 100% "judge a book by its cover" kind of reader, Snapper certainly caught my eye from across a crowded aisle at ALA Midwinter. It's not only gorgeous to look at though, it's also appropriate as the protagonist, Nathan Lochmueller, studies birds in his native Indiana. Readers follow Nathan in these linked chapters (there's really no big narrative arc to speak of) as he deals with romance issues, job issues, family issues, vehicle issues and a big love/hate relationship with his state. All the while he his studying birds and sharing inside information on the birding life.

So yeah, GREAT cover!

Without a big plot point - the romance is up and down, the job issues are up and down and there are no bodies discovered in the woods - Snapper keeps you with Nathan's voice. He's funny, often sarcastic, sometimes wry and always noticing things about the people and places around him (which makes sense as he studies birds for a variety of agencies).

There is some talk of politics here and a few slight digs about the difference between the Midwest and South (in the way of telling a few family stories). And there is some noticing of differences found in small town versus large illustrated quite sweetly at one point by a sojourn into the lives of the fine folks of Santa Claus, Indiana, where every Santa letter gets answered by the denizens of the local diner.

Basically, Nathan spends the book trying to find himself and the reader is along for the ride. This doesn't sound like much - it sounds like one of those exceedingly dull books about nothing in fact - but Snapper is funny and Nathan does evolve and Kimberling manages to make Indiana such a big part of the story that you feel like the state's identity is a character as well. Here's a bit:

I doubt anyone outside Southern Indiana knows what a stripper pit is. They don't exist anywhere else. This is sometimes embarrassing for me in conversation, if I say I spent many a happy adolescent hour there. People think I'm talking about Thong Thursdays at Fast Eddie's. The British Broadcasting Corporation once sent a reporter by boat to Evansville to investigate the wild ways of the inhabitants--the kind of thing they used to do in "deepest Africa," I think. We are Hoosiers after all.

A stripper pit is what remains of a bituminous coal mine, so, as explained in the next paragraph, this his how you get a lake spontaneously in the midst of some woods. Lest you think these are beautiful landscapes, Nathan explains, "At the bottom of those lakes you'll find old refrigerators and stolen cars and bags of kittens. It is Southern Indiana."

So what happens in Snapper? Nathan and his friends grow up, some amounting to something and some not. He does a lot of observing of birds and people and a lot of thinking about his on again/off again relationship with Lola. Eventually he moves away and finds the right girl and grows up (mostly). It's a life like a million others in America and in most every single way it is not the least bit special.

Except Brian Kimberling knows all of them are, and that's why Snapper is really such a great book.