Unsettled
Immigrant German pioneer farming families in Iowa provide the historical setting for this novel, a fictionalized story of the author’s own family roots. The main character in the present day, Van Reinhardt, is a historian on a genealogical research quest, put in motion by her recently deceased father. Travelling back to Iowa, she immerses herself in the pioneer history of the area based on the lives of family members pictured in a family portrait from 1900. As she searches, she deals with her own personal trauma stemming from her stilted childhood and young adulthood that parallels in some ways her ancestors’ trials and tribulations. What follows is not only an awakening of her own selfhood and her place in her family’s history, but also a deeper understanding of the idea of history and how it is recorded, described, and understood.
This dual-timeline novel gives voice to both Van and her ancestor Tante Kate, strong-minded women in two different eras of American history who are connected to each other through both family ties and experiences of family trauma. The language of the novel is quite lyrical and evocative in creating connections between characters and moments in time. Recommended for all readers who yearn to find the human stories in family history research.
