In the unlikely setting of 1937 rural Montana, teenage cousins share a passion for aviation in Cloudmaker, a sweeping yet personal coming-of-age story. Following Painted Horses, Malcolm Brooks again offers engaging, resolute characters and evocative descriptions of the country and the era.
Eighteen-year-old Annalise is exiled from California to her aunt and uncle's in the "bona fide jerkwater" town of Big Coulee, interrupting her social life as well as her flying lessons. Meanwhile, her cousin Huck, 14, has secretly tested a glider and built the frame for an "honest-to-God airplane" in his dad's shop. Worldly Annalise and whip-smart but sheltered Huck share respect, affection, a goal of getting in the air and a commitment to following Amelia Earhart's progress.
Descriptions of their flights are exhilarating, as they revel in the landscape and views, with Big Coulee no larger than a Lionel train village: "It all looked so gol dern small." Supporting characters are fully realized: Huck's father, Roy, is "a salt-of-the-earth sort" and his mother, Gloria--frail, protective and a tent-revival Christian--gradually becomes central to the story. While Huck and Annalise refine the plane with Yak, new to town and key to their success, subplots simmer: gangsters have a keen interest in a wristwatch Huck acquired in a recent escapade; looming drought forecasts trouble; and both cousins find romance. Evocative, descriptive prose of 1930s Montana--as well as the days "before white people and horses and guns"--in pitch-perfect dialect will immerse readers firmly in Brooks's beloved American West, and above it. --Cheryl McKeon, Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, Albany, N.Y.