All the Forgivenesses
All the Forgivenesses is a wrenching read. It begins in dirt-poor Kentucky in 1906 and concludes in the oil boom in Kansas, a few years before the crash of 1929. Bertie (short for Albertina) Winslow must grow up quickly. Her father is a drunk and a horse trader, and her mother is just plain worn out after multiple births—Bertie, two boys, then two more girls, then twin boys. When she wastes away and dies, Bertie is fifteen and burdened by her mother’s dying words to take care of all the children. She makes choices that cause her sister Dacia to resent her and sends the twins to live with one of the older brothers. She finds a husband, Sam Frownfelter, who is willing to give a home to Bertie, Dacia, and Opal, the more docile younger sister.
Bertie is the narrator, and Hardinger notes in the afterword that her speech is that of the author’s grandparents. Bertie doesn’t even reach an eighth-grade education, as her mother needed her at home, but she reads, and her poor grammar doesn’t detract from how expressive she is. She makes sacrifice after sacrifice for her siblings, and Dacia’s cruelty towards her causes her to believe it’s still not enough.
As the central figure in this story, Bertie is the most fully-fleshed out character. She’s fortunate to make a love match with Sam rather than a marriage of convenience, but although he’s a sympathetic character, he’s a bit of a cipher as is the perpetually pissed-off Dacia, who enacts a form of revenge on Bertie late in the book. This book stayed with me for a long time because it so vividly brings to life how poverty and lack of choice so profoundly affect a person.
