Blueberry Summers: Growing Up at the Lake

by Curtiss Anderson

Book Overview

"I would begin thinking about summer on our lake as early as Easter. Yes, it was our lake, not just the lake."

In this classic story of a midwestern boyhood, Curtiss Anderson takes readers into the colorful lives of his robust Norwegian family and their wonderfully familiar summerscape in northern Minnesota: the lake place. Sweet childhood reminiscences comprise this coming-of-age memoir set in the poignant summers of the 1930s and '40s. Conversations on the porch with Dear Old Aunt Ingabord, a heavily accented relative from the Old Country. A budding romance and heartbreak with young Sarah, who lived across the lake. Wild blueberry picking behind Turnaround Island. Joyful tales devoted to cherished dogs he had outlived-old Shep and Mickey, Nebby, and feisty Bunny. And fond memories of Clara and Leigh, the loving couple who treated the budding writer as if he was their own child.

Anderson revisits the notes and letters he scripted as a boy, originally recorded on his hand-me-down Underwood typewriter-his first foray into what would become a distinguished publishing career-to offer Blueberry Summers. Here, the nationally recognized magazine editor offers a funny and warm story of experiences that inspire the imagination.

Curtiss Anderson

is a writer and editorial consultant. He has enjoyed an illustrious career with Hearst Magazines and Better Homes and Gardens and as editor in chief of Ladies Home Journal. He lives in Tiburon,
California, with his wife, Anne.

From the Wall Street Journal, Coming of Age at Lakeside,
By ALLAN CARLSON
June 7, 2008

My summers have almost always meant a trip to Minnesota lakes: for my first 15 years, to Leech Lake; for the 40-plus since, to Lake of the Woods or the Boundary Waters canoe country. The landscape is on the edge of the Canadian Shield, defined by rough granite outcrops, birch and pine trees, bogs, and lakes carved deep by the glaciers. Most of the lakes are connected by streams or old Indian portages.

The year-long residents of this area are mostly the descendants of Swedes and Norwegians, with an occasional Dane or Finn providing diversity. The churches are mostly Lutheran. Remnants of the old languages survive in town festivals ("Uff Da Burgers"), cuisine (the formidable lutefisk) and backwoods bars where "Skl " remains the favored salute.

Returning each summer has been, for me, more than a homecoming. As my own son, standing on our favorite island in Lake of the Woods, put it at age 12: "Here is the place where I come alive."

In "Blueberry Summers," a memoir, Curtiss Anderson also describes "the transformation that occurred when I arrived at the lake." In satisfying detail, he narrates life in and about an old farmhouse on a northeastern Minnesota chain lake during the 1930s and early 1940s. Mr. Anderson, a former magazine editor and writer, has a novelist's flair for framing characters.

There is Leigh Johnson, his father's best friend, who became more than a second father to the permanently towheaded boy. Leigh was a meticulous man who knew the lake country as well as any Indian guide. A skilled fisherman, he remarked that "God doesn't count the hours fishing."

There is Clara, Leigh's wife, mistress of the kitchen, whose love of life took form in her potato salad, exquisite doughnuts and Blue Boy Pie (combining wild blueberries, raspberries and blackberries). Though young Curtiss never saw his own parents touch each other, Clara and Leigh "were quite sexy in a cozy sort of way."

There is Uncle Skoal, blond, handsome and scampish, who sported a wooden leg from a chain-saw accident. Commenting on Skoal's favorite pastimes, Aunt Dora concluded that "women would finish in a dead heat with gin." There is Great Aunt Ingeborg, an ancient Norwegian who became young Curtiss's "constant, endearing, and bewitching companion" as he recuperated from an accident. She talked of her wayfaring husband, Nels, who had been an iron miner and a pilot on Lake Superior ore boats.

And there are the Schumachers, a refugee family with 12 children that had fled the Nazis, settled in a ramshackle farm across the lake and protected a secret. This family "grew, sewed, farmed, fished, trapped, or shot practically everything they ate or owned." Curtiss is drawn to Sarah, the eldest daughter, a horse-loving girl with exotic eyes and "velvety black hair."

This little book is full of diverting tales. During a canoe trip, Curtiss catches a 10-pound walleye, puts it on a stringer in the water and then loses this great prize to ravenous turtles. (My own 9-pound, 6-ounce walleye, hooked at Leech Lake when I was 5, suffered an equally tragic fate.) Curtiss's and Skoal's illegal "catch" of a near-record 60- pound carp leads to white lies and notoriety.

"Blueberry Summers" has a dark side. Mr. Anderson explores his troubled relationship with his parents -- saying the word "Dad," he confesses, "doesn't come easy for me" -- and he relates a disturbing incident on a "dead" lake that nearly took his life. The book ends with a tragedy. "All the harmony and beauty -- and security -- I had always associated with the lake," he writes, "was destroyed forever."

And yet those qualities are also recovered in "Blueberry Summer," an ably crafted, true-life coming-of-age tale. The book will delight anyone who has ever known the lake country of the Upper Midwest. More broadly, it will reward and please readers who have ever had in their childhoods a special summer place.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0873516087
• ISBN13: 9780873516082
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: Borealis Books
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

The Poetry of Childhood

What a pleasure to read an old-fashioned, heart-felt, utterly sentimental memoir with the power and poetry to evoke the innocence, happiness, and yes, disappointments of childhood and growing up in a family that...mattered. Anderson captures the essence of the whole experience in language that flows effortlessly and often lyrically from the first joyous to the final rather sad pages. What ever happened to no-nonsense writing like this?

Good Ole Summertime

In my memory, summer always stretched out like a lazy dog. I read books in a sacred spot under the canopy of a cottonwood tree, rolled in freshly-mown grass, and ran against the chinook wind, spreading my arms wide and hoping to fly. Anderson's book brought back those magic moments. I read it slowly, savoring my own memories as inspired by his.

COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN

Curtiss Anderson has done for the Minnesota Lake Country what Peter Mayle did for Provence and Frances Mayes for Tuscany -- transported me there on winged words and introduced me to the sights, sounds, and scents not to mention characters both comical and crochety. Of course the Lake Country of Anderson's youth ('30s and '40s) is what gives this memoir its particular magic plus the author's own poetic prose: "Nature would always challenge, threaten, protect, and entertain us with its sweet and sad surprises," Anderson writes. "Things would happen that had never happened before and would never happen again. That is the essence of wilderness and wildlife." Who can forget Clara Johnson and her famous doughnuts (Anderson shares that recipe on page 27), dear old Great-Aunt Ingaborg who was "Norsk to the bone," or young Sarah Schumacher who in the adolescent Anderson's eyes "was the most exquisitely created human being who ever lived?" Each of them is as unforgettable as the entire cast of characters from Anderson's extended Norwegian family. Anderson's coming-of-age summers beside a northern Minnesota lake will resonant with everyone who grew up in the age of FDR, rumble seats, and water pumps constantly in need of priming. As for the younger generation, I'd make BLUEBERRY SUMMERS required reading if only to prove that it's possible to have fun deprived of play stations, paintball fights, and virtual TV.

Enjoyment

This was a delightful,carefree book to read for summer enjoyment. The insight into Curt's boyhood and his relationship with his parents and their friends was so well done. You just felt like you were on the lake fishing sometime. I recommend.

A Great Read for All Seasons

This book is so magically written that it will transport you to a lakeside paradise you will never want to leave. You'll believe Anderson's memories are yours, too -- you'll recall that blue heron by the beaver dam and remember with delight Aunt Clara's Blue Boy Pie (stuffed with raspberries and blackberries, too -- not just blueberries!). What sets this book apart from other fine works of nostalgia is that this guy can write. Imagine a Garrison Keillor tale as told by Truman Capote. EXAMPLE: "Clara fried small sunfish with their delicate bones so perfectly that the skeleton lifted away like a widow's veil. She dusted northern pike and walleye with seasoned four and allowed them to linger in her vintage wrought-iron skillet with the timing of a Barrymore." Now add to this recipe the monsters of childhood, the circus antics of family and the terror of a boy suddenly drowning in a lake he once hoped would embrace him forever. You will not stop flipping these pages.