First-time novelist Smith Henderson’s Fourth of July Creek is the story of a social worker named Pete Snow who is caught in the web of a world gone wrong. Snow is a young, complex, deeply compassionate man crisscrossing Montana in 1980’s pre-Reagan America, trying to rescue an endless log of lost and troubled children, including his own daughter. Early on, Henderson recounts the scene as Snow revisits a troubled household: “The neighbor finally had it with the two of them broadcasting to the whole row of houses how they’d kill each other, what appendages would be hacked off, and into what orifices they would stick those dismembered parts.” For Snow, it’s just another day at work.
Because of the overwhelming workload and number of damaged young clients, Snow is often forced to improvise in order to make a difference. He asks friends to take in stray children, works around the clock and often seems ill at ease. Snow is also separated from his wife, and his teenage daughter has disappeared, which prevents him from wholly dedicating himself to his job. Overwhelmed, the 30-year-old Snow doesn’t realize he could use some rescuing himself.
Fourth of July Creek is a location deep in the woods where a paranoid, dangerous survivalist named Jeremiah Pearl is living with his family; they are off the grid in protest of a litany of perceived governmental flaws. Snow’s challenge here is to save Pearl’s near-feral son, Benjamin, but in order to do that, he must first win the trust of Jeremiah. And in doing so, Snow finds himself at odds with government officials investigating Pearl.
Henderson possesses a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue and his unconventional prose is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy. With Fourth of July Creek, Henderson has established himself as a tremendous writer and delivers a troubling but heartfelt novel that depicts our country’s deepest flaws, worst contradictions and greatest challenges.
Grade: A+
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2014.