The Great Alone

by Kristin Hannah

Leni was afraid to stay and afraid to leave. It was strange—stupid, even—but she often felt like the only adult in her family, as if she were the ballast that kept the creaky Allbright boat on an even keel. Mama was engaged in a continual quest to “find” herself.

Gosh… this is that mid age crisis every human experiences. I think kids have more understanding than adults. And at some point kids become adults. 🙄

(Mama dancing was really all Leni remembered about those years.)

Mama changed her personality just enough to fit in.

This is survival mode to me.

She would give anything for a real friend right now. It was all she really wanted: someone to talk to. On the other hand, it didn’t help to talk about her worries. What was the point of confession?

She knew how sorry he was. She could see it on his face. When she was younger, she’d sometimes wondered what good all those sorries were if nothing ever changed,

At least she’s aware of the demons chaos and instability that her parents obviously haven’t been able to defeat.

Mama had explained it to her. The war and captivity had snapped something in him. It’s like his back is broken, Mama had said, and you don’t stop loving a person when they’re hurt. You get stronger so they can lean on you. He needs me. Us.

This is a strong woman trait. We mold ourselves in order to please our loved ones, in order to maintain the family united. It’s sad and beautiful at the same time. The amount of intention this requires is big. But it sucks she said US. 😞

He stopped sentences halfway through all the time, as if he were afraid of giving voice to scary or depressing thoughts.

I’m torn on this… I’m sure the book is saying that he’s not facing his demons. And he probably isn’t. But I also believe that some traumas are not worth revisiting.

Leni knew about that reticence and understood it; lots of times it was better to stay silent.

“A house that’s ours. That we own. In a place where we can be self-sufficient, grow our vegetables, hunt our meat, and be free. We’ve dreamed of it for years, Cora. Living a simpler life away from all the bullshit down here. We could be free. Think of it.”

Having his own opinions about what he thinks is freedom.

Mama frowned. “But … there’s nothing up there, is there? Just bears and Eskimos.”

Sometimes I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin. Up there, the flashbacks and shit will stop. I know it. We need this.

This is an escape. But I’m not sure Alaska is what I picture as being peaceful. He definitely wants something he’s carrying from his trauma to leave his being alone. Alaska sounds like a lonely place, so this is where he’s dragging his family instead of facing his demons.

Leni saw Mama softening, reshaping her needs to match his, imagining this new personality: Alaskan.

This chameleon of a woman! Woman are always so willing to morph into what they think they need to be for their family. It’s like a survival instinct, like if we don’t morph? Would the family divide?

Where or when or what didn’t matter to Mama. All she cared about was him.

She is very attached to her husband, probably because of her husbands traumas and she doesn’t want to be the cause for his spiral. But this feels very dependent. What about your daughter and her moving 5 times different schools? This feels like submission? Ugh. Woman!

Ultimately, it didn’t matter what she or Mama wanted. Dad wanted a new beginning. Needed it. And Mama needed him to be happy.

Gosh this family is crumbling because the head of the house is too unstable and unwilling to navigate his demons. Emotionally, all three of them are in survival mode and God knows that by not communicating what they should be, they will probably go thru a lot of pain. Those unspoken conversations slowly make us resent one another.

Leni would do as she was asked and do it with a good attitude. She would be the new girl in school again. Because that was what love was.

This girl is so torn on what love is. She needs to start voicing herself to her parents! I understand it’s probably just learned behavior not to say anything.Does she have fear to communicate what she really feels? God!

We don’t sleep. It was what Mama always said. You and me. The connection between them a constant, a comfort, as if similarity reinforced the love between them.

“I need a girlfriend to talk to.” “I’m your friend.” “You’re thirteen. I’m thirty. I’m supposed to be a mother to you. I need to remember that.”

“Your dad cleared out our savings account. And they won’t give me a credit card unless your father or my father cosigns.” She lit up a cigarette. “Sweet Jesus, it’s 1974. I have a job. I make money. And a woman can’t get a credit card without a man’s signature. It’s a man’s world, baby girl.”

“He turned you against us. And all of your friends, I might add. He wanted you all to him—”

You’re going to follow him to the ends of the earth, where no one will be able to help you. Your father and I tried so hard to protect you from your mistakes, but you refuse to be helped, don’t you? You

Leni tried to imagine her mother in this buttoned-down, closed-up world, but she couldn’t. The chasm between the girl Mama had been raised to be and the woman she had become seemed impossible to cross. Leni

“Don’t do this crazy, dangerous thing, Coraline. Leave him. Come home. Be safe.” “I love him, Mother. Can’t you understand that?” “Cora,” Grandma said softly. “Listen to me, please. You know he’s dangerous—”

Signs of aggression, or concerns for an aggressive pattern. This is a nice mom. She is reading cues and trying to protect her daughter who is grown ass woman.

Now Leni was old enough to know that like all fairy tales, theirs was filled with thickets and dark places and broken dreams, and runaway girls.

Mama was obviously angry with her mother, and yet she’d gone to her for help and hadn’t even had to ask for money to receive it. Leni couldn’t make sense of it, but it unsettled her. How could a mother and daughter fall so far apart?

“He’s a proud man.”

“Who cares about school? This is a real education, Leni,” Dad said. He looked at Mama.

We’ll trade in your Mustang for a VW bus, but man, we could sure use more bread.”

he’s also drained the accounts savings. This is what having a chaotic “head of the house” looks like.

It didn’t feel right. Wasn’t lying always wrong? And an omission like this was obviously a lie. Even so, Leni remained quiet. She never considered defying her mother. In this whole big world—and with the specter of their move to Alaska, it had just tripled in size—Mama was Leni’s one true thing.

This was no town. An outpost, maybe. The kind of place one might have found on a wagon train headed west a hundred years ago, the kind of place where no one stayed. Would there be any kids her age here?

“Good. We could use some bacon. Maybe a little rice. And some whiskey.”

Addiction is more important than necessities for the family.

“We do everything on impulse, Large Marge. It keeps life exciting.”

She has become an expert at justifying the life she never wanted; finding reasons, crafting excuses, and clinging to hope as she followed every road her husband chose for himself, mistaking his dreams for their future.

“Well. You’ll need to be tough up here, Cora Allbright. For you and your daughter. You can’t just count on your man. You need to be able to save yourself and this beautiful girl of yours.”

Preach! 🙌🏼

Fear is common sense up here.

How do you not run hearing this from the people who live in the town? Lord.

People running to something and people running away from something. The second kind—you want to keep your eye out for them. And it isn’t just the people you need to watch out for, either. Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next.

“Will ya look at it?” Dad threw his arms wide, as if he wanted to embrace it all. He seemed to be growing before their eyes, like a tree, spreading branches wide, becoming strong. He liked the nothingness he saw, the vast emptiness. It was what he’d come for.

He is deeply wounded, and the normal world overwhelms him. Alaska is exactly what he’s been chasing. No community, not healing but emptiness. A place where he can be in control, and where he can impose his own will.

“Okay, Allbrights,” Dad said, hefting his own pack on. “Let’s go home!”

When he calls them “Allbrights,” he’s not just talking, he’s pushing. Like saying the name will somehow make them tougher or more loyal to his vision. It’s less about family and more about control. Ugh. As if being an Allbright should automatically mean toughness, survival. They now have to live up to his idea of what that name means, not their own. It’s not encouragement; it’s expectation.

“Mama!” Leni reached for her without thinking and her pack threw her to the ground. Mud filled Leni’s mouth, made her sputter. Dad was beside them in an instant, helping Leni and Mama to stand. “Here, girls, lean on me,” he said. And they were off again.

This is clear to me. He took his family to a place where he could feel like the alpha, the protector and the one calling the shots. That’s “his” territory.

The darkness seemed to be rising rather than the sun falling. As if darkness were the natural order around here.

Dad put his hands on his hips and threw his head back and howled like a wolf. When he stopped, and silence settled in again, he swept Mama into his arms, twirling her around. When he finally let her go, Mama stumbled back; she was laughing, but there was a kind of horror in her eyes. The cabin looked like something an old, toothless hermit would live in, and it was small.

Divided views on what each sees as free. And clearly he’s the dominant in the household and she’s feeling scared. But She’s still playing the chameleon role. Morphing into something she thinks she needs to be for her husband to get his soul put together again while hers and her daughters soul is being crushed to the ground and God knows what more.

She knew what Mama was feeling right now, so Leni had to be strong. That was how they did it, she and Mama. They took turns being strong. It was how they’d gotten through the war years. “Thanks, baby girl. I needed that.” Mama put an arm around Leni, drew her close. “We’ll be okay, won’t we? We don’t need a TV. Or running water. Or electricity.” Her voice ended on a high, shrill note that sounded desperate. “We’ll make the best of it,” Leni said, trying to sound certain instead of worried. “And he’ll be happy this time.”

Leni saw her father frown. “You think we’re incompetent?”

He reacts like he got a cut to the heart. He def took that personal.

I followed a man up here. Classic story. I lost the man and found a life.

This happens to many woman.

“I never found another man worth having. You know what they say about finding a man in Alaska—the odds are good, but the goods are odd.”

“Life in the bush is hard work, but you can’t beat the taste of salmon you caught in the morning, drizzled with butter you churned from your own fresh cream. Up here, there’s no one to tell you what to do or how to do it. We each survive our own way. If you’re tough enough, it’s heaven on earth.”

This is so true. There’s an unspoken pleasure in the doing of things rather than the result. That salmon def tastes different when it’s your catch.

“We needed a fresh start,” Mama said,

“He has the look. And, well … Bo left you this place.”

Somehow outsiders always notice danger before it even happens.

“This place is magic, kiddo. You just have to open yourself up to it. You’ll see what I mean. But it’s treacherous, too, and don’t you forget that. I think it was Jack London who said there were a thousand ways to die in Alaska. Be on the alert.” “For

The paradox!

The weather and the isolation makes some people crazy.”

“Cora, can you make coffee?” Large Marge asked. Mama laughed and hip-bumped Leni. “Well, now, Large Marge, it seems you’ve found the one thing I can do.”

Coffee is a grown up thing. What is a 13 years old have to do with making coffee?

Alaska isn’t about who you were when you headed this way. It’s about who you become.

Alaska is going to strip them down to their most raw self and will forces them to rebuild. It’s hopeful but also a warning