Neither Friend Nor Foe

The Quickening
Michelle Hoover

Other Press, 2010

Enidina Current and Mary Morrow live on neighboring farms in the flat, hard country of the upper Midwest during the early 1900s. This isolated, hardscrabble life comes easily to some, like Enidina, or Eddie. She never wanted more than this land and the animals she raises on it with her husband, Frank. But for the deeply religious Mary, farming is a lower class lifestyle and one she is not suited for. Still, Mary creates a clean and orderly home life for her stormy husband, Jack, and her sons, while she adapts to a lonely existence far different than she expected her life to be. Her only friends are the local preacher, who lets her play his piano, and Eddie. She is the first to befriend Eddie in a relationship that will prove as rugged as the ground they walk on. Despite having little in common, Eddie and Mary need one another for survival and companionship. But as the Great Depression threatens, the delicate balance of their reliance on one another goes awry, pitting neighbor against neighbor and exposing the dark secrets they hide from one another.

This quiet novel is a thoughtful examination of two women and their awkward relationship. Their close proximity to each other forces the friendship, but it’s a half-hearted, sometimes bitter, sometimes tolerant situation. Weather conditions, medical emergencies, and social events often necessitate one depending on the other for assistance, but they don’t like that much, either. And yet, as children come and go, economic conditions rise and fall, crops and animals suffer or die, these two women find something in each to cling to when all else disappoints them. As each character narrates her chapter, we see that despite all their differences, they come to depend upon and care for each other, as connected as two family members throughout all these years. This contemplative story will leave the reader thinking of the value of friends and family members who we don’t always appreciate but who stick with us through thick and thin, no matter what happens.

This is the author’s first novel.

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