Fourth of July Creek: A Novel

By Smith Henderson

In this shattering and iconic American novel, PEN prize-winning writer, Smith Henderson explores the complexities of freedom, community, grace, suspicion and anarchy, brilliantly depicting our nation's disquieting and violent contradictions.

After trying to help Benjamin Pearl, an undernourished, nearly feral eleven-year-old boy living in the Montana wilderness, social worker Pete Snow comes face to face with the boy's profoundly disturbed father, Jeremiah. With courage and caution, Pete slowly earns a measure of trust from this paranoid survivalist itching for a final conflict that will signal the coming End Times.

But as Pete's own family spins out of control, Pearl's activities spark the full-blown interest of the F.B.I., putting Pete at the center of a massive manhunt from which no one will emerge unscathed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9780062286451

Smith Henderson

Smith Henderson is the author of Fourth of July Creek and lives in California and Montana.

Book preview

ONE

The cop flicked his cigarette to the dirt-and-gravel road in front of the house, and touched back his hat over his hairline as the social worker drove up in a dusty Toyota Corolla. Through the dirty window, he spotted some blond hair falling, and he hiked in his gut, hoping that the woman in there would be something to have a look at. Which is to say he did not expect what got out: a guy in his late twenties, maybe thirty, pulling on a denim coat against the cold morning air blowing down the mountain, ducking back into the car for a moment, reemerging with paperwork. His brown corduroy pants faded out over his skinny ass, the knees too. He pulled that long hair behind his ears with his free hand and sauntered over.

Name’s Pete, the social worker said, tucking the clipboard and manila folder under his arm, shaking the cop’s hand. We’re usually women, he added, smiling with an openness that put the cop at ill ease.

The cop just replied with his own name—Eugene—took back his hand, and coughed into his fist. The social worker pointed at the cop’s badge with his chin, a seven-pointed nickel star with MONTANA chased inside it, mountains on the left, plains on the right, a sun, a river.

Lookit mine, Pete said, pulling out a flimsy laminate from his wallet. I keep telling them I need a badge that don’t look like it came out of a damn cereal box.

The cop didn’t have a ready opinion about that. He burnished a smudge off his own shield with a plump red thumb and turned toward the house. It abutted a steep hill and was poorly maintained, if at all. Peeling paint, a porch swing dangling from one rusting chain, a missing windowpane taped over with torn cardboard. Couch cushions, half a blow-dryer, some lengths of phone cable, a plastic colander, and broken crockery littered the yard. Pieces of clothing slung up in the cedar shrubs like crude scarecrows, and the grass erupted in tall disordered bunches, stalks shooting through the warped porch boards, at places window-high. The screen door hung open behind where the mother and her son sat.

Shit, Pete said. You had to cuff them.

That or they’s gonna kill each other.

The mother called out to him—Pete! Pete!—but he shook his head no, and she looked off, pissed and muttering. The son didn’t even glance up, but must’ve suggested something to her because she turned away from him and spat out some words. From where they were, Pete and the cop couldn’t hear what hateful thing she said, and they watched a minute to see if the bickering would flare up. It did not.

Pete affixed the open folder to the clipboard, clicked his pen, and started his incident report. The cop let out his pony-keg belly a little. They always relaxed when the social worker got involved, soothed by the scritching of his pen, relieved that Pete would be taking it from here.

So what happened? Pete asked, pen aloft.

The cop snorted contemptuously, lit up another cigarette, and told him. They were at it again, and the neighbor’d finally had it with the two of them broadcasting to the whole row of houses precisely how they’d kill each other, what appendages would be hacked off, and into what orifices they would stick those dismembered parts. There were children about, the neighbor said, so he went over. He pounds on the door. No response. Cups his eyes to see in the window. Sounds like the argument has spilled out the back door of the house. The neighbor jogs around to the side gate, where the boy is standing with his air rifle. The two of them halt at the sight of one another. Then the kid starts crossing and uncrossing his eyes at the neighbor. To unnerve him or because he’d at last gone bonkers, who could say.

Did he actually threaten the neighbor with the gun?

The cop blew smoke out his nose.

This guy, he knows a pellet gun when he sees it.

Right.

But it ain’t like he pointed the gun at the guy or said anything threatening at him exactly. The neighbor says he was more worried about the kid going after the mother.

Pete nodded and wrote some more.

So then what?

So he says ‘fuckit’ and calls it in.

And the situation when you got here?

The situation was a perfect fucking mess. The situation was the kid climbing up onto the slanted, dented aluminum carport and stomping on the rusted thing like an ape. Just making the whole unsound shelter boom and groan under his weight. The mother saying so help her if that thing falls on her Charger she’ll gut him, and the kid just swagging the carport back and forth so that it was popping and starting to bow under his weight. Now the cop was about ready to shoot the ornery shit off the goddamn thing.

Then the situation got interesting.

The mother has the air rifle and—

No way, Pete said.

Yeah, fuckin way, the cop said.

She shoot him?

Before I get to her, yeah, she shoots. You can see the big old welt on his forearm.

Pete started to write.

And then what?

Then the kid leaps off the carport just as the cop has taken the air rifle and ordered the woman inside, but the kid and his mother are already tearing at each other like two wet cats in a sack. Right in front of a goddamn cop, mind you. Like he ain’t even there. All the neighbors are out on their nice, normal lawns in their bathrobes clutched closed at the neck watching the cop trying to disentangle the two of them, taking it in like the fucking rodeo. And the bitch—pardon my French the cop at last says about all his cussing—won’t desist, and the kid won’t desist, so the cop wrangles the first one he can get a hand on—the woman it turns out—and wrestles her onto her belly and into the cuffs, but not before the kid makes a run to kick her in the face, which the cop just barely stops with his own body. And realizing he’s just kicked one seriously pissed-off police officer in the chest, the dumbshit turns tail and flees.

And you ran him down, Pete said.

Smoke leaked out the cop’s pale yellow smile.

See that pickup? he asked.

Yeah.

So he’s looking back to see if I’m coming and he runs smack into the open tailgate.

I imagine that was satisfying.

Your words, brother. The cop took a drag, and blew it at the ground. Anyhow, by the time I get him up on the porch, she’s blubbering about how she has a social worker who knows the whole history of everything and would straighten them out. ‘Please, please, would I call the social worker,’ she says.

Pete nodded and wrote. His arm was tired, so he bent to finish with the clipboard on his thigh. The cop said something.

I’m sorry? Pete said.

So what’s going on with these two? the cop asked again.

Pete scoffed, not at the question, but at the enormity of the answer. How to sketch it. Shorthand it. A great many things were going on with them. Went on and would keep going on.

The mother collected unemployment but her full-time occupation was self-pity. She slippered around the house in sweatpants and smoked a lot of weed and took speed and tugged her hair over her face in a shape pleasing and temporary and dumped forth her old bosom and smiled prettily for herself and discovered nothing in the mirror to recommend her to anybody for anything. Or so you could imagine, the way she mooned her eyes at you until you told her to knock it off, you wanted to talk about the children. She ventured out only to get her SSI check and visit her dealer somewhere up on the edge of the Yaak Wilderness. Sometimes to get cereal. She could be seen around town powdered white and made up in slashes of red around her mouth and blue around her eyes like an abstract of the American flag, some kind of commentary on her country, which of a sort she was. Mostly she cloaked her grand paranoia in aviator glasses and lavender feather boas and, when she was ripping high, imagined herself some kind of fairy, and when she was low, imagined herself some kind of persecuted witch.

Pete closed the manila folder.

The mother’s a disaster. Most of her disability goes to speed.

I recognize the kid, the cop said. Got a good run of priors going.

The kid dangled his head between his knees. A recreational gas huffer, who smelled like gasoline, but with an undertone of minerals like a rotting pumpkin in hot dirt. Other times of Cheetos and semen. With that acne-potted skin, you initially felt sorry for him. He came and went but not to school or for long or for good. He owed restitution for an arson (equipment shed, track field), had a pending court date for burgling pickups.

He’s about one infraction away from a stint at Pine Hills, Pete said.

Like assaulting a cop.

The thing was, Pete suspected the onset of something diagnosable, a condition or combination of disorders that a good therapist would home in on. But Pete could never get the fifteen-year-old to an appointment, either because of the boy or his insane mother. He told them there was a new drug called Ritalin in the literature. Regretted saying the word the moment it slipped out of his mouth and they looked at him like he’d broken out in French. Literature. What drugs and literature in the houses in and around Tenmile, Montana. Louis L’Amour and James Michener, and comic books, furled and foxed Penthouses, some marijuana. Popular Mechanics and some truckers’ speed. The Bible, if you were lucky. Good God, what this dotty bitch and the punkinhead son would make of Revelations. It’d look like something painted on the side of a van. The cranks and drunks up here took to Jesus (in jail, if it pleases the court) and worried creases into the spine of the good book, consulting it like the I Ching or a Ouija board. For a good five or six months, they’d follow the Ten Commandments and hand out Jack Chick tracts like they were lucky pennies or rabbits’ feet. But soon they were chipping, they were sneaking a drink or a joint or some uppers on the sly, thumbing the thin pages for answers to the little questions as if following the better part of God’s law was achieved by divining from Leviticus what to have for supper or what color socks to wear.

He could maybe do all right in a stable environment, Pete said. Maybe not.

On the porch, the mother and son sensed things approaching a head. Their social worker had his clipboard under his armpit and he and the cop were talking. The mother watched, read the men’s body language, a language with which she had some fluency from previous arrests, other times she was made to wait. In court. At the SSI office, signing up for disability security. She chinned herself toward them trying to hear, but the kid was untroubled, mute and deviceless as a glass of lukewarm water.

So do you feel like throwing a mom and her son in jail today? Pete asked.

I surely do not. But these two are full idiots. The cop dropped the butt and mashed it neatly with the point of his boot. I thought the mama was plumb full of shit.

About?

You. Dispatch didn’t even know if we had a Department of Family Services in town.

My office is in the basement of the courthouse, Pete said amiably. Next to Records.

So whaddya usually do with them?

There’s no usual. What can I say? The kid’s got priors. I’d like to keep him out of Pine Hills. There gonna be any charges?

I dunno. Resisting, I guess. Assault if you wanna go there.

Do you?

What I don’t want is to come back. The cop pressed closed a nostril with his finger and leaned over and blew furiously out of it.

Let ’em off with a warning?

The cop nodded, wiping his nose with the back of his index finger.

Okay. But let me talk to the girl first, Pete said, bending to look in the squad car.

The girl?

There was no girl in the squad car. Pete had assumed there would be, but there wasn’t.

What girl? the cop asked.

Pete ignored him and charged through the yard and up the steps. The mother leaned over whining at him, but he stepped around her and she fell over—Hey! she said—but he was past her and into the house. The light laddering through the blinds was morning light, cleaner and brighter. Not that what it shone on was much worth seeing. Styrofoam cups and paper bags and dirty clothes in the windrows of their comings and goings. Ashtrays on the gnawn armrests of the couch were filled to overflowing with butts. A dark jar of liquid sat on the coffee table atop a stack of unopened mail.

Katie? he called. The catch in his throat surprised him. Sweet Christ, he really gave a shit. The way he charged up in here. That he was here at all.

Kate, it’s me, Pete.

He set down his clipboard and stepped into a small cloud of fruit flies off the kitchen and waved them away from his face, his eyes. Into the narrow hall. Bed sheets with rust-colored stains and rectangles of particleboard rode along the wall. A pacifier. A Happy Meal box filled with twine. Sacks of sand and cans of open paint. A hammer and a stack of eight-track tapes.

Katie?

There were families you helped because this was your job, and you helped them get into work programs or you set up an action plan and checked in on them or you gave them a ride to the goddamn doctor’s office to have that infection looked at. You just did. Because no one else was going to. And then there were the people who were reasons for you to do your job. Katie. Why.

Fuck why. She just was.

He stepped past the boy’s room and called for her again. She wasn’t in her room. Just a mattress on the floor and a thin sleeping bag and a cup of water. Pink nude dolls. He stepped over a crushed cardboard box and pulled on the cord to a bare bulb. Her small clothes lay on the floor. The cop’s shadow passed by the window. Shit, she might have run away and into the woods out back.

The sliding closet door rattled on its track. There.

Katie, it’s Pete.

The door slid open. His heart was actually pounding. She stepped out into the room, slight and shy and stinted. Hair nearly white, and scared white too.

He knelt.

Hey, he said.

She turned her head away.

Hey, he said. It’s okay. I’m here.

She put her head down and charged at him and threw her arms around his neck. He gasped, and her hair sucked into his mouth with his breath, and her heart thrummed in her little birdcage chest, the little pumping bird that raced in there. His own racing too. He could feel the relief behind his eyeballs, his face, shuddering in his body like exhaustion.

So she was in here, the cop said from the doorway.

Katie pressed her head tight against his, and he tried to unclutch her, but she closed her eyes against him, grabbed one of his ears, gripped his neck, and squeezed as hard as she could. Pete stood, the girl affixed to him. The cop scratched himself.

It’s okay, Pete said to the girl and then again, louder to the cop who departed, nodding sheepishly.

Katie, he said. The policeman is gone.

She looked to see if it was true, not at the door but at him. A skinny blond thing so small in his arms. She put her hands inside his coat.

This was scary, wasn’t it?

She didn’t move.

The policeman came, didn’t he? Because your mom and Cecil were fighting, right?

She murmured yes.

It was scary, wasn’t it? I’d be scared. Not knowing what your mom is going to do to your brother or what your brother is going to do to your mom? Did you see the policeman?

Uh-huh.

And is that when you hid in your room?

She nodded against his chest.

It’s okay now. That was a good thing to have happened, because the policeman called me. And I’m here now and we’re gonna get this all straightened out, okay?

She wasn’t ready to straighten out anything. She needed him to hold her. He rubbed her back, the laced bones of her spine. She shuddered out a terrific sigh. He wondered what she was thinking. He wondered did she wish he would take her away. Did she wonder what his house was like. What kinds of food he had. What he would play with her. What kind of father could he be.

He knew what kind of father he was.

But he knew too that it’s nice right here to hold a small frightened girl and be strong and necessary. Times he took children from a bad home when it was almost worse on him than the child. Times they crushed up against him like this and he thought the work all came down to sheer rescue.

He carried her through the house and to the porch. The sun was full up, and the birds were out making their singsong rounds. The cop was talking to the mother and Cecil and he acknowledged Pete with a nod, looked under his fingernails, and kept talking to them.

Now, I could put both of ya’s in jail. I oughta should. He winked at Pete. But, uh—

Pete.

—Pete here says you’re good folks having a spot of trouble is all, and I should be lenient.

He uncuffed them, the mother first. The boy rubbed his wrists. The shamed woman’s chin quivered, but she didn’t say anything.

"I don’t wanna come back, you hear? If I do, somebody’s going to jail. And I mean if I come back tomorrow, or next week or next month. I don’t ever want to come back, you understand?"

The woman nodded. Cecil seemed transfixed by the indentures on his wrists.

You all right here? the cop asked Pete.

Yeah. Thanks, Eugene.

The cop tipped his hat, and walked to his car, lighting another cigarette. When he left, a thick cloud of dust bore up from the road and washed over the porch and enveloped them. Pete covered the girl’s face and went inside.

Pete had come up from Missoula to work in Tenmile a little over a year before, in the fall of 1979. Most of the people he actually knew in the town and in the region were his clients. In Tenmile everybody knew everybody else or at least one of their kin or where they liked to get good and peppered on a Friday night. Thus far, Pete had maintained a low profile. Anyone who met him outside of work knew only that he had an office at the courthouse, maybe something to do with easements or water rights. Some kind of comptrollery that went on in the basement.

But his anonymity would not last for long, he knew that. The past Saturday night he’d seen both the boy and the mother out and up to no good, Cecil in the bed of a pickup with a broken baseball bat, and Debbie on a stool at the Dirty Shame bar in an open-backed top that exposed her razorous shoulder blades and a dense constellation of moles. He’d managed to avoid speaking to either of them, but Tenmile shrank with every case.

Debbie followed him inside the house, dropped onto the couch, and commenced quietly sobbing. Pete sat on a wooden chair by the door. The room stale with the smell of flat soda and body odor. The mother glanced at him in intervals. Pity me. Poor me. Angling for his sympathy.

Let her dangle a minute. Let her see how well that works.

He got up and carried Katie into the kitchen, still nuzzled to his chest. He didn’t even know if her eyes were open. He tried to catch their reflection in the window, but couldn’t make her out. Five years old and light as a toddler. He might have been holding a long doll for all she moved or weighed.

You hungry?

She nodded against his chest. Plates crusted with dried mustard and mayo and ketchup crowded the countertops like discarded palettes. Fruit flies teemed over a bowl of old fruit, fruit he might’ve brought two weeks ago. Jesus, it was the fruit he’d brought. For fucksake. You try and help and she doesn’t even give them the fruit. She doesn’t even pretend. You put the fruit in the bowl for her and you say to her to make the kids eat it and she nods vigorously like she learned to in school, in detention, at what few jobs she’s had, she’s only ever learned to nod and say yes. Fucksake. You could picture her getting pregnant that way. Yeah, sure, it’s not my time of the month, don’t worry about it, I ain’t getting pregnant. I do too much speed. My ovaries are broke.

There was cold pasta in the sink that looked halfway fresh. He touched it and it was still moist. It smelled okay. He set the girl on a plastic lawn chair by the table. She watched him fetch a bowl from the stack of dirty ones and wash it with hot water and a bar of soap from the windowsill. He washed a fork the same way, grinning at her. He sniffed the noodles again, and then forked the stiff spaghetti, but it came out of the colander like a halved basketball, and so he rinsed it and pulled it apart with his hands into a saucepan. He searched the cupboards and fridge and at last simply emptied a ketchup bottle over the pasta, and put the red mess on the electric stove. The girl tucked her knees up under her armpits, gazing at him as he turned the noodles in the heat. When the pasta sizzled, he carried her and the steaming bowl out to the living room. On his lap she blew on it, ate, and was otherwise silent.

The mother had ceased crying and stared at him grimly.

I just can’t get you all off my back, she said.

I’m not on your back, Debbie. You told the cop to call me. He covered the girl’s ears. I’m nowhere near your damn back.

He could feel the girl chewing under his palms.

You let things get so out of hand, the cops come? Jesus, Debbie.

Her chin crumpled like a can again. He uncovered Katie’s ears and whispered he needed to talk privately to her mother, and she nodded and blew on her food. Lovely girl. He’d take her. He would. He covered her ears again.

I know. I know. Just nothing works out for me. She picked through the junk on and around the coffee table for something—a cigarette probably—and knocked a metal pipe to the floor.

We talked about that.

She nudged the pipe under the couch with her foot.

About self-pity, he said. Not the pipe you’re trying to hide.

You said you’d help me, she said, searching the cluttered table with roving hands.

What do you think I just did with that cop? That’s helping. That’s exactly helping, he said.

She found an empty pack, and crushed it, sighing hugely.

Not enough it ain’t.

She looked at the cuff-welts on her wrists and started in crying again. Katie twisted spaghetti around her fork.

Debbie. You’re not the only one to ever fuck up. Everybody’s got their troubles. Pete kissed Katie’s hair. Even me. I got problems just like you do. I mean, hell, I’m only up here in Tenmile because I needed to get away from some bullshit where I was at.

At this, Debbie looked at him.

Just take him away. She tried to work up some tears. He’s an ungovernable.

You can parent him, Debbie.

I got a note from his school that he ain’t been for weeks.

We can deal with that. Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on here at home.

She rubbed her face. She was coming off of whatever she’d been on and her spindly hands worked her head like they were trying to dig into her skull. Her legs quietly pistoned.

You know what all goes on. He’s crazy.

I’ve made numerous appointments to get him in to see the psychiatrist in Kalispell—

He won’t go! What am I supposed to do? He’s biggern me!

You can hold your own, Debbie—

He hates me.

He doesn’t hate you.

He hates her, Pete thought. I hate her.

She balled her fists and crushed them into her eyes. For several moments.

Okay, Deb. Why don’t you take it easy on your head there?

What?

Your head. You’re digging into it.

She set her jaw and shook her head.

Take him. Just take him.

Where? Where am I supposed to take him, Debbie?

His hands had slipped off Katie’s ears.

Wherever you take kids when you take them. Ain’t that your job? I’m asking you to take him. Do your fuckin job. I’m a taxpayer.

Katie twisted around to see him, alarmed. A touch of want in them too. Would he take her away. Take her with him.

Nobody is going anywhere. He put his hands back over her ears. I don’t know what you think I do, but let me tell you, the world is not filled with people waiting to raise your children.

His uncle then.

Just then, Cecil entered. Air rifle in hand. Pete shunted the girl into the recliner and stood. The boy leaned the air rifle onto the couch. He wore a backpack and was expressionless and heavy-lidded and it occurred to Pete that Debbie was probably a raging drunk when she was pregnant with him. Had to name him Cecil of all things. And now this mess of a person.

I’m leaving, he said. You can forget about me.

Hold on— Pete started.

Go already! Debbie screamed, outsized for the situation. Just leave me! Leave me here with no man in the house!

Debbie . . . , Pete said.

You ungrateful piece of shit!

Fuck you! Cecil roared, and he slipped by Pete and had his mother by the hair. Both of them shouting, Debbie kicked him in the groin, and he let out a low moan, released her, and fell to his knees.

All right, all right, enough! Pete hollered, but the boy quickly stood and punched her in the face. She wheeled backward arms flailing, and tripped into the television, which fell onto the corner of the flagstone fireplace and cracked open like an egg. A snotty tendril of smoke rose out of the picture tube. The boy lunged, but Pete pushed him down and pressed his knee into the middle of his back.

Get out! he yelled at Debbie. Go!

She cupped her eye as though the pain had at last occurred and further enraged her. She stepped back to take a run at kicking her son in the head. Pete grabbed at her leg, but she skipped out of range. Pete pointed toward the rear of the house.

Get out, goddamnit, or I’m calling the cops.

You piece of shit!

Debbie! Go or the cops again! Your choice.

She wasn’t listening. Cecil struggled and yelled, and Pete jammed his knee in harder—but then Katie gathered her mother’s long fingers and tugged on her, and Debbie followed her out of the room calling Cecil a sonofabitch, sonofabitch, holding her crying eye.

It wasn’t yet noon and no one was much about on the square in Tenmile or around the Rimrock County Courthouse or the shops. The only person they saw as they drove across the tracks and then the river was a man pumping gas at the station on the way out of town. They were soon in a narrow alley of serried pines that gave way to mowed pastures. Pete turned onto an unsurfaced road that was shortly a ruck of graded dirt and vibrated them silly in their seats until they pulled in front of a white ranch house. Their flesh and ears buzzed in the sudden stillness. Out of sight atop the flagpole before them snapped an American flag in the wind.

The ugly pumpknot on Cecil’s head glowed like an ember. His nose whistled. He gripped the air rifle. Pete had agreed to let him take it, just to get him out of the house.

You can’t bring that here with you, Pete said.

Cecil stared straight ahead.

Now look, Pete said. This isn’t permanent. You’re going back home.

Like hell.

You mother is your mother.

I’ll cut her cunt out. How’s that sound? Cecil asked.

Pete rubbed his face.

It sounds damn awful, Cecil. You can’t talk like that. Not here.

Like what?

Like a psycho.

I ain’t a psycho.

All right, look. Look at me. Cecil turned. I need to know that you’ll be good to these people. They don’t want no trouble and I don’t want to bring them any. They wanna help.

Just drop me off on the highway.

You know I can’t do that. Let’s just get you and Mom apart for a little while, and see if we can’t get things figured out when everybody’s cooled off a little bit.

Cecil raised his palm. Whatever. Fuck you, Pete.

Pete got out. The house was set back from the fence and the flagpole, and in back were outbuildings and beyond them an empty pasture. Cecil stayed put. Pete went through the gate and then up the path through a trellis to the house. A regal old hound brayed responsibly at his approach but didn’t get up from inside the doghouse. Pete was almost to the front door when an older man came out of the garage, wiping his hands with a red rag, which he stuffed in his back pocket before he pumped Pete’s outstretched hand. The man’s great white mustache twisted out like longhorns. He and Pete exchanged greetings and were now looking over at the boy.

Thanks for this, Pete said.

Not a problem.

The aproned missus stuck her head out the front door, ruddy and cheerful as a gnome, and said howdy and that she couldn’t come out, they were just about to pour the jam into the jars, but would Pete want one. Pete said of course, and turned back to Cloninger.

There he is there in the car, Pete said.

We looking at a shy fella or a tough guy?

Around grown men, he’s pretty docile. But him and his mom are in a bad way.

Cloninger laced his fingers together, hung them below his belt, and tilted his ashen head at Pete.

"He’s got priors, but they’re sneaky priors. Arson. Breaking and entering. He was with those kids that were busting into pickups outside the basketball game last spring, Pete said. He’s older and bigger than that Rossignol kid you took in last time, but I think he’s more bark than bite. That said, you never know. He might could be a handful," Pete said.

I see.

Really, I just don’t know how he’ll act in a different environment. Probably quiet for a few days and then we’ll just have to play it by ear?

They Christian?

Not even close.

Cloninger nodded.

I hate to ask this, but what’s the longest you can have him? Pete asked.

Cloninger unlaced his hands and pulled out a small black calendar and a small pencil from his shirt pocket. He thumbed through the little book to the place he needed. He squinted without his glasses.

We’re going to Plains in two weeks. Marta’s sister. If he gets along, he can certainly come with.

Nah. I’ll get something sorted out before then. There’s an uncle. I just didn’t have time.

Okee-dokee, Cloninger said, putting back his calendar and pencil. Let’s get him set up.

One thing, Pete said, touching Cloninger’s elbow. Obviously, he isn’t going to be grateful for your hospitality. But please do accept my gratitude.

Cloninger clapped Pete on the shoulder.

We’ll feed and shelter him, body and spirit.

From the car, Cecil observed the man holding Pete’s shoulder and bending his head at him, like they were praying with one another. Then Pete and the man were at the car and opening the door, Cecil going along with it, handing Pete his air rifle, shaking the man’s hand, and then already in his house which was a cloud of sweet moisture and the dog was sniffing his groin, and the mother squeezed his hand, and their children lined up to greet him too, and this was really happening. Pete was already out the door with a jar of jam, and Cecil was shown a spare bed and where to put his things. Then they were sitting down to eat. He was just in time for lunch, they said like it was pure kismet, and the dog would not quit sniffing his pant legs under the table even though he moved his feet and tried to shoo him with his hand.

What was her name?

Rachel Snow. But she wanted to change it.

To what?

Rose. Rose Snow said something deeply true about her. About her soul. She was a frozen flower. It was so sad, her almost-fourteen-year-old heart throbbed with feeling. Gushed.

And there was this bitch at Rattlesnake Middle School named Rachel.

This other Rachel.

Why’d she reach over with her foot and stomp on the gas as she and her mother idled at a light?

Because her mother was taking too long.

Because she couldn’t stand the way she drove.

Because she didn’t know why, all right?

Because she just always felt now like she needed to go go go everything was taking too long she was missing it all. She was thirteen already and she was missing everything.

Everything.

Did they nearly have an accident?

No.

Did her mother slap her?

She tried, the bitch. Just caught a bit of her hair.

Did her mother say that this was it? That she could go live with her father she was gonna act like this?

Bitch always said that.

What did Rachel think of going to live with him?

It’s Rose.

What did Rose think of going to live with her father?

She thought, whatever. That it was all talk.

A break they called it. Hilarious. He bought a house up in the woods.

No, she didn’t even consider it a possibility.

Why not?

She just didn’t.

Why?

This wasn’t why, but you wanna know something? What she remembers about him? Like an oldest memory?

Yes, of course.

A party at Greenough Park. Her father and mother and uncle Shane and some of their other friends. Uncle Spoils makes his dogs take a bath in the creek, coaxing them into the cold water. Working the clots of hair. He slips, goes all the way under and when he pops up he’s yards downstream and only just manages to get to his feet and clamber out. Coughs up sprays of water, eyes wild with fear. Walks sopping wet back up to his dogs barking and nipping at him in their excitement, and says you kids stay away from the water. It’s too high to play around. Don’t go near it. Go on. Go play over in them trees or somewheres.

He’s from Butte. He’s totally hilarious. Big ears and a big nose and big eyes. Mustache, hair like red straw.

So later. It’s almost dark and time to go home and her daddy is calling for her and she goes. She’s five or maybe six. And he’s in a hurry about something, about getting Mommy home, they had a fight because she was being foolish. Daddy had begun saying that sometimes about her, that she’d get foolish at parties, sometimes grown-ups acted silly he was saying, no, not like Spoils silly, but Mommy has her own kind of silly, it’s—we gotta hurry. And he says come on, the bridge is too far, the car is right over there, the lot is across the creek, come on. And he picks her up and they go into the dark water. And she tells him Spoils said to stay out and he wasn’t being hilarious—

They are already up to his waist.

He’s breathing hard, straining against the water. Footing the rocks now, slow steps. The water is cold through her shoes. She says she’s scared Daddy and it’s cold Daddy and she pulls her feet out of the water and it changes his balance and he stumbles and she clutches and screams.

He stops in the middle of the stream. Says for her to be quiet.

Be still.

He’s breathing heavy.

Water’s not that deep, not over my head, but it’s fast, okay, he says. You gotta just hold on. I got you. His breath burns her nostrils and the smell of his sweat is bitter.

She realizes much later—when she got that bottle of crème de menthe with Kim and Lori from Lori’s dad’s liquor cabinet—that he was drunk. But even at the time she thinks I don’t trust him, I don’t believe him.

He doesn’t have me.

And the next step, he slips, they go over into the roar and churn and she’s so shocked by the cold and the outrageous fact of this even happening that she isn’t even upset, she’s just this thing being acted upon, totally helpless as a dolly, that it isn’t until he’s got her at a cutbank and pushes her up through the brush, handfuls of wet dirt falling away, shoving her into the poking sticks that then, right on the heels of relief, she is so so so mad. She slaps him when he comes out after her.

That your daddy could drown you on accident. She’s shaking with the cold and the last of her fear and then her warming anger, her daddy almost killed them both.

Come on, Applesauce, he says. You’re okay, he says.

And when he touches her, she won’t let him, she says you’re foolish too you’re foolish Daddy too.

TWO

Tenmile was set in a triangular valley at the confluence of the Kootenai River and Deerwater Creek. A ghost town shared the creek’s name, a settlement abandoned in 1910 when the last of the fifty thousand ounces of copper had played out. Before that, gold and silver. Miners by the hundreds and then the thousands blasted it free with dynamite and high-pressure water hoses, melted the mountain into muddy and runneled hillocks that from the bird’s eye would have looked like a red and brown cavity furiously attended by denim-blue ants. Deerwater was never easily gotten to, and the town of Tenmile sprung up, first as a canvas-tent trading station the name of which was lost to memory but eventually became known as Tenmile because of its distance on the perilous switchbacks from the mining camp.

By the time the last of the miners left Deerwater’s muddy sluices, Tenmile boasted a town square with an area for a courthouse. The town swelled to 3,500 souls. The citizens incorporated and sent money to the legislature to be named the county seat and within the year broke ground on a courthouse and jail. Timber and the vermiculite mine in the nearby town of Libby kept Tenmile populated through the world wars and well into the 1960s before the grown children began to move away, the elders started to die, and the town settled at a suspect equilibrium of about 2,500 people in 1975.

It was home to many loggers and around a hundred men working at the mill. A few guys made more than fifteen dollars an hour at plumbing, machine work, and sporting goods. A used-car dealer did fair competition with his rivals in Troy and Libby. There were a pair of service stations and two churches (both Protestant), four steamy cafes, and ten bars. About three hundred citizens made the haul to Libby for the third shift at the vermiculite mine and came back looking like they were dipped in flour, bloodshot in the eyes. Fervid coughs kept their wives and children up nights.

There was a single lawyer who handled all the defense work, a rotund judge named Dyson, and a profoundly alcoholic district attorney on whom even the old sots looked down. Two pastors and two pastor’s wives and a gaggle of ever-present old ladies threw bake sales for various charities and gossiped about everyone in sight. Self-important nepotists manned the fire department and police station, the kind of men who sometimes turned handily heroic in the histories of other small towns and were no different here, having thwarted a bank robbery in 1943 that could be pointed out in places where ricocheted bullets had lodged around the square. There was even a piano instructor who lived in a small, well-kept cottage that looked like it just might house a piano teacher and from which issued an incompetent plinking that proved it. And there were twenty-plus teachers in the town

Reviews for Fourth of July Creek

[addunn3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A social worker in rural Montana attempts to do his work while his own family pieces are flying apart. Interesting, good writing, but at times a little over the top. Maybe I don't get out enough, but the main character seems to be out of control and making poor personal decisions that are counter to his work requirements. But "it is Montana", seems to be the explanation.

[robinkaye-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Kind of heavy to read around the holidays but a great book!

[techeditor_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a great book! I’m not alone in thinking this, either: since FOURTH OF JULY CREEK was published in 2014, it has won numerous awards.But, right up front, I want to say I have two issues with this book: its genre and its title.I do not agree with the genre the book is classified under (at least at my library), Mystery and Suspense. To call it that is a stretch. Although part of FOURTH OF JULY CREEK wonders what became of a family, that is only a part. The book is literature more than it is mystery and suspense.And FOURTH OF JULY CREEK is about more than Fourth of July Creek. The book centers on Pete Snow, a social worker in Montana. Fourth of July Creek has to do with one of his cases that begins with the discovery of a filthy and somewhat wild boy, Benjamin Pearl, who lives in the wilderness with his father, Jeremiah, a paranoid man, suspicious of everyone, always afraid that his freedom is threatened.Pete seeks to gain their trust so they will accept his help and, in so doing, learns the Pearl family also consists of a wife and several more children. Where are they?But that is just one of Pete’s cases featured in FOURTH OF JULY CREEK. Also, issues in his own life make up half the book, with a runaway daughter who resorts to prostitution because she thinks she is maintaining her freedom and a brother who is evading prison. All the parts of FOURTH OF JULY CREEK, Pete's social work and his personal issues, have in common the desire for freedom.Smith Henderson is an author I’ll be watching for. His writing is brilliant, a word that may be overused but, in this case, is applicable.

[aurorapaigem-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm always skeptical of books that I I read about on must-read lists. I'm glad I read this one though! I liked that the main character was in a professional position, but was just as messed-up as the people he was responsible for taking care of. Some of the content and language is graphic, but it really only serves to paint a picture of the lives these people lead. This book would probably be considered more of a male read, but that doesn't mean that females won't enjoy it. It almost seems like modern fiction, but is set in the 80's. I'm honestly not sure who I would recommend this book to, but there are themes of depression, religion, conspiracy, violence, complicated man-woman relationships, complicated parent-child relationships, abuse, and living poor. -Audio

[kvrfan9 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the opening chapter we are introduced to Pete Snow, social worker, as he intervenes with a very dysfunctional family in Pete's jurisdiction of rural Montana. And we think, "Ah, a do-gooder! Let's root for Pete." But come the second chapter, we find that Pete's pretty dysfunctional too. His wife is leaving him, and his daughter has no sympathy for him either for the things he's done, so our sympathies shift to them. But, no, we then find up they're pretty screwed up, too.

Indeed, there's not a single character in this book--and there are quite a few--who isn't screwed up in one way or another.

And by the end, a major character whom we perceived as being screwed-up from his introduction becomes one who gains some of our sympathy.

Human beings are a complicated lot, we are. No one can righteously carry the mantle of angel, and there are few true devils. The book ends, "You gotta believe. You can't just go through live acting like there are answers to every--"

The book is very well written. Ironically, with so much ugliness happening in the narrative, it is countered in the narrative by so much beautiful prose. I question a bit whether some of the wonderful allusion and metaphor the author uses should have been allowed to slop over into the things actually voiced by some of the uneducated characters, but I suppose that's literary license.

This is Smith Henderson's first novel, and I would look forward to his next.

[baggman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to read this book as soon as I read a review on my library website. I found it enticing, the kind of book that would appeal to me. It did not disappoint.

I’ve never been to Montana. The closest I’ve ever gotten was four days in Scottsdale Arizona, studying the city’s development regulations. Fourth of July Creek, which takes place during the early 1980’s, does not tell a story that will make you want to visit Montana, unless you are one of those unique individuals that enjoys killing their own food and cooking on a wood stove. Or drinking boiler makers in a bar where most people are wearing John Deer caps and muddy work boots and smell of fresh timber, or fresh manure. Where the Jukebox only has Hank Williams and Willie Nelson songs. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just not for everyone.

This is a story of what can, and often does happen, when personal freedom, at least what may be perceived as personal freedom, collides with government. Add a dose of Old Time Religion, the complexities of social interaction, and the problems of rebellious youth and you have the foundation for Fourth of July Creek.

Henderson’s writing style is what I would describe as unique. Some may find it somewhat difficult to follow, requiring paragraphs to be reread. I reread quite a few paragraphs myself, to better understand their intent. I also reread many a paragraph just for the enjoyment. If the following excerpts give you pause, as they did for me, you’ll want to read this book.

She is proof that there is nothing that cannot happen to someone. That the world doesn’t need permission, that there is no novel evil it won’t embrace.

But there was an aptness to his late conversion, as though he always knew that at the end of his life he’d have to do something to avoid going to hell.

Gnaw Bone was lousy with Jehovah’s Witnesses coming by every week, selling a map to hell. A man comes to your house to give you something—a service, a good, a belief—you best set him back on his way.

After the fact, it was pretty obvious she was suffering massive withdrawal, that her body was precisely calibrated to the careful and steady administration of vodka, amphetamines, and barbiturates to maintain her.

What was it like on the way to Texas? It was Wyoming, which means to drive forever through ugly scrubscape the color of dirty pennies. It was just wyoming along. They were wyoming forever. You could wyom all day and not make any progress. To wyom was to go from nowhere to nowhere. Through nowhere. To see nothing. To do nothing but sit. You turn on the radio and wyom through the dial slowly, carefully in search of a sliver of civilization only to find a man talking about the price of stock animals and feed. You listen to a dour preacher wyoming about your bored and dying and wyoming soul.

[rglossne · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an extraordinary first novel. Pete Snow, a 31 year old social worker, seems to be failing at his personal
and professional lives, overmatched by the evils of the world, drinking way too much. Three stories are interwoven: the failure of Pete's marriage and disappearance of his daughter; the tragedy of a family infected by drugs; and the story of Jeremiah and Benjamin Pearl. Can Pete save any of them? Himself?

[arubabookwoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of a Montana social worker, a flawed character in need of social work himself. He comes across Benjamin Pearl, a nearly feral boy living in the wilderness with his survivalist father Jeremiah, who is paranoid and mentally disturbed. Pete, the social worker, begins leaving food and other items that might be useful to the family in an attempt to gain their trust. Then, confirming Jeremiah's fears, the FBI comes to believe that Jeremiah is a terrorist. Pete's professional dramas are played against Pete's chaotic family life. Pete fights his own alcoholism. He is divorced from his wife who is unstable, and has followed a trucker to Austin, taking their daughter with her. After their daughter runs away, Pete also spends much time and resources to trying to find her. Pete's brother is also a fugitive from the law, and Pete is involved in trying to find him as well.kI enjoyed the book, was interested in many of the characters. There is a great deal going on throughout this rather long book--we learn much about the hard lives of the survivalists living in the great western wildernesses, the life of a teenage runaway on the streets of Seattle, the lives of children whose parents are crack addicts, and who are shunted through foster homes, and even into juvenile detention if no foster homes are available, the life of hard-scrabble musicians in Austin Texas. It's a very sad book, full of broken characters. It might have been a better book had the author not attempted such breadth, but it is nevertheless a book well-worth reading if you can deal with the pain of the characters.3 1/2 stars

[eenerd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Absolute page turner, filled with really gorgeous writing and decadently rich characters. A clever, deep, and yet completely readable book. How nice! And I love that there were big complex words that needed to be looked up...no one does that anymore! Why? Smith Henderson obviously is a true craftsman, and a real talent.

[tommyb_50 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Train WreckAnyone who thinks about reading this book needs to understand that everyone in the book is a complete train wreck. The social worker who is the main focus, his estranged wife, daughter, girlfriend, brother and boyhood best friend. And then there's the people he is trying to help -- almost always unsuccessfully. None of these people is just mildly flawed -- they are all walking disasters. The one hint in the last few pages of something going right is erased by the last page in the book. Don't expect to be uplifted, satisfied or anything other than regretful that you had to read through such horror stories of lives.

[chasidar_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this book though it got really depressing at times. Didn't love the ending.

[alexrichman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book drops you straight into the scuzzy backwaters fillled with grim-faced, fucked-up people. Like a gritty Empire Falls, you end up being charmed by the town and its odd inhabitants.

[timbazzett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

FOURTH OF JULY CREEK, by Smith Henderson.Who is this guy, Smith Henderson, and where did he come from? Because this book is just so damn good! He's like Athena, who was born fully grown and armed, springing from the forehead of Zeus. Only this guy, this AUTHOR, has sprung fully armed with all the best tools of the writing trade from, from ... Hell, I don't know where from, but did I say how GOOD this book is?I probably don't really need to summarize the plot, because the book's already been reviewed a few hundred times by now. But Pete Snow is a protagonist who will not be easily forgotten. A caseworker for the Department of Family Services in western Montana in the early Reagan years, Snow is overworked but fiercely dedicated, trying with everything he has to make a difference in the lives of some of the poorest and most screwed up people you have ever met. As a character, Snow is completely, fully realized. Henderson is inside the guy's head to an extent that, once you've started reading, it's almost impossible to get Snow out of YOUR head. While Pete tries to save the least of our brethren, his own family has disintegrated. His wife and thirteen year-old daughter (and oh, the daughter, another sad story, and another character Henderson OWNS, he is so inside her head too) have left. Pete is living in a cabin in the mountains, off the grid. Hey, I don't want to summarize this complex, moving, at times frighteningly horrific story. That's already been done. Then there is Jeremiah Pearl and his eleven year-old son, Benjamin. Pearl is a survivalist, a religious crazy, a guy who hates the government and civilization in general. When they enter Pete's purview in tiny Tenmile, Montana, the story takes off, and you can't help but hang on for your life in a tale that takes you from Montana to Texas to Indiana to Washington and Oregon and a lot of strange places in between. Henderson knows these places. He knows the Yaak wilderness - the forests and mountains and valley - as well as the red light district of Seattle and the main drag at UT-Austin. And he makes you feel that you know these places too.What makes this book such a ride? Think Waco, think Ruby Ridge, think the Unabomber, and maybe even a little bit of Jonestown with its sacramental Kool-Aid. Put all this kind of stuff deep in the trackless "rain forest" and "jungle" of the Yaak. Send in cops and the ATF and FBI on a concentrated all-out manhunt. And put Pete Snow, this imperfect, battered but dedicated "priest" of the secular religion of Social Work, right smack in the middle of it, trying to save a young boy. (In fact there are other cases he's covering that are equally interesting and morbidly horrific, i.e. Cecil and Katie, and their abusive druggie mom.) And then there's the parallel plot of Pete's daughter Rachel (aka 'Rose'), who takes you deep into the terrifying, dark and ineffably sad world of teenage runaways.Sorry, I can't get all this stuff into a review. There's just too much going on, but it all comes together masterfully, and there is a kind of redemption to be found, finally, if you manage to ride it out to the end.Influences? Comparisons? I first thought of a recent novel by another Montanan, Kim Zupan's THE PLOUGHMEN - another beautiful book about an equally grim subject. And the descriptions of the bars and clubs of Missoula made me think of the late James Crumley, whose PI noirs nailed those places so well. And the Yaak Valley, with its dope farmers and other weirdoes brought to mind the West Virginia stories of Pinckney Benedict. And poor, crazy, raging teenage Cecil and his doper mother brought back Earl Thompson's classic novel of Depression-era Kansas, A GARDEN OF SAND. In the end, however, Smith Henderson has created his own unique world here, and it couldn't be any more real - or terrifying - than it is. Final word: FOURTH OF JULY CREEK is, hands down, simply one of the best books I have read in the past ten years. My highest recommendation.

[shiraloo · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book wasn't my cup of tea. I was interested by the primary story line, but then the author veered into the destruction of Pete and I couldn't figure out where it was going, and I got turned off. DNF @ 16%.

[tututhefirst_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have a push-me, pull-you feeling about this book. I kept reading it because the story pulled me along, but I wanted to push the main character over the side of a cliff several times. I found most of the characters well-drawn although not very likeable. I found the story discouraging, but couldn't be sure if I wanted to believe that it accurately portrayed the dismal life it was painting. All in all, it is a book I would recommend but with caveats that it can drag on a bit, and it certainly isn't a fairy tale.

[hubblegal-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I kept reading this book in the hopes of finding something of value in it that would justify the raving reviews it's received. Never did find it. I didn't like any of the characters or cared about any of them except little Ben Pearl, who was caught in all of his father's paranoia. I don't see where the writing was brilliant. I thought it was very disjointed and confusing. Very disappointed in this book and will stay away from anything else written by this author. The book literally gave me a headache and made me feel sick. I very seldom give any book two stars but this hardly deserves that. I'll give it those two stars only because about a third of the way in, I was curious about what would happen, especially to the Pearls, but that curiosity died out another third of the way in.

[citizenjoyce · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is on several best book of 2014 lists and well deserving of the honor. It's about a male social worker in Montana (one of his first remarks is, "I know, most of us are women"), parenting in all forms, bad decisions from small to life altering, religious and political nuttery, police overreach, government under reach and the fragility of humankind. I was sad to finish the tale because I was so caught up in the characters and kept hoping good would come to them.

[flourgirl49 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Pete Snow is a Montana Department of Family Services social worker in the 1970s who works with impoverished families and in particular with Jeremiah Pearl and his son Benjamin who live in the mountains and trust no one. It's a gritty story, made worse by the fact that Pete is an alcoholic who has a hard time dealing with the realities of his life - a cheating wife, a runaway daughter (who is still on the run at the end of the book), a fugitive brother, various friends who try to help him out but who are in bad shape themselves. Pete is a mess, and frankly there seems little hope that he will ever straighten himself out, which makes for a fairly depressing read. Still, not every book needs to be all sunlight and rainbows. It's the author's first book and a substantial achievement, even if it's not fun to read.

[revliz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the best books I've read this year. Not fun. But GOOD!

[sturlington_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

In 1980s rural Montana, social worker Pete Snow tries to keep his own life together while helping the children in his care.Smith Henderson has written a very readable book, a gripping story with several insights about the hardships of life on the fringes of society. However, I had a major problem with the novel that kept me from enjoying it completely. The main male characters in the book -- Pete, his brother Luke, and the survivalist Jeremiah Pearl, who Pete encounters in the woods with his son Benjamin -- are, despite their deep flaws, basically noble men trying to do their best by their kids and families. Pete himself has a failed marriage, is battling alcoholism, has a runaway teenage daughter, and seems prone to criminality, but it's clear that he cares about the kids he comes across and only wants to help them in any way he can. In contrast, the women in this novel are all ruins. They are addicted to either drugs, alcohol or sex; they are failures as girlfriends, wives and, most especially, mothers. They may love their children, but inevitably wind up damaging them, sometimes irreparably. The only female character who's allowed to show some strength is Pete's runaway daughter, Rachel, but she may well be on the road to ruin herself -- her fate is a question mark. I found this treatment of men and women in the story to be incredibly lopsided, without justification -- a feeling that continued to grow as I continued to read. While all in all, I liked the book and admired the writing, I had to deduct a star just because of this one-sidedness.Read in 2014.

[em0451 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

First, a few warnings about this book.If you are looking for a cheerful, uplifting story of redemption, this is not your book.If you re looking for something to give you a glimmer of hope in this broken world, this is not your book.If you are offended by bad language, this is not your book.If you have difficulty reading stories about child abuse, this is not your book.If you have made it through all of this list without shying away, then maybe this could be a book for you.It's dark and edgy and grim and gritty. It's not a pretty story, and the writing spares no details when it comes to some of the horrors and tragedies experienced by these characters. Yet, despite all the disclaimers above, I did find this to be an intriguing story. I've never been one to shy away from dark stories, and I think that is because they are usually so different from my own life experiences. I enjoy being able to get a glimpse of what life is like for people who are not like me. And these characters from rural Montana are definitely not like me!Pete Snow, the main character in Fourth of July Creek, is a social worker trying to help kids in his rural Montana town of Tenmile. But just like the kids he is trying to help, Pete has plenty of problems of his own. When Pete tries to help a boy living in the woods, he comes face to face with the boy's father, Jeremiah Pearl, a conspiracy theorist who is anxiously and eagerly awaiting the End Times. As Pete's own family falls apart, he also begins to form a cautious and unlikely friendship with the Pearls, and he gets caught in the middle when the FBI come to town on the hunt for Pearl.The idea that "abuse leads to more abuse" was illustrated clearly in this grim tale. I just felt so incredibly sad for all of these characters. They all appear to be stuck in the rut of following what their parents and grandparents have done before them, of living a life filled with abuse, pain, alcohol, drugs, sex, and regret. No one was happy. At all. I know this story is fiction and not based on real people, but I know there are many people in the world who live this way. It is terribly sad to think that people could spend their whole lives living like theses characters, without joy and without hope. I also found it interesting that the social workers in this story seemed to have the same problems and issues as the clients that they are trying to help. Pete said something to this effect in the story, "we take kids away from people like us." Yet, I still found myself rooting for Pete and wanting him to succeed, despite his flaws. He was far from perfect, but still he was trying to do good. I appreciated the real humanity of his character.So while this story didn't make me feel good in any way, it was still captivating. It's hard to say I enjoyed reading it because of some of the tough content, but I still would say I liked the book quite a bit. I especially liked the parts when Pete interacted with Jeremiah Pearl and his son Benjamin, and when we were given glimpses into what their life was like before Pete met them. I also liked the "interviews" (I put that in quotes because I'm not convinced that they were really interviews...kind of wish there was a little more closure there) with Rachel, Pete's daughter. Although having two daughters of my own, those interviews were also terrifying for me to read!I would recommend this book with a lot of caution, because it is definitely not for everyone. But if you are up for this gritty story full of flawed, troubled characters, it is well written and engaging and one that I won't forget for a while.

[katybee_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this novel - the excellent writing, the deeply developed characters, the gorgeous imagery all create the world perfectly. This is a story of human pain, fatal flaws, heartbreaking parent and child interactions, and just carrying on through the worst and occasionally the better of situations. Great writer for those who can read the darkest of stories and appreciate the sheer mastery of the telling.

[jules72653 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was grim and dark. I could not put it down and I won't soon forget it.

[ozzer_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Henderson has crafted a gipping story with the theme of how children can be damaged and placed at risk by adults who somewhat compulsively engage in dicey behaviors. The mood of his novel is extremely dark. Except for the children, there is little to like or admire in most of the characters, including the narrator--Pete Snow. Pete is a social worker in Montana who is dedicated to saving children from risky circumstances caused by adults. Pete seems to connect well with the children while failing to do so with most adults. Ironically and inexplicably, his own lifestyle reflects a similar dysfunctional background and is totally inconsistent with his professional dedication. He comes from a dysfunctional family, is estranged from his brother who is a fugitive criminal, is estranged from his alcoholic wife, has an extreme drinking problem of his own, has an affair with a colleague who has similarly been damaged by a dysfunctional childhood and has a daughter who is a runaway. The latter character--Rachel/Rose--is developed completely through a series of interviews that Henderson inserts at various points in the narrative.A secondary plot element follows Jeremiah Pearl and his devoted son, Benjamin. Pearl is a paranoid survivalist living in the wilderness with his large family. Except for Benjamin, the rest of the Pearl family is not well developed in the novel. Pearl is a hard man but seems to love his son and cares for his family. Initially, Ben seems to be just another example of a child abused by a self-absorbed parent, but as the narrative progresses, Henderson reveals a warmer relationships. We learn the family history through backstory--the mother is extremely religious, believes in omens and is prone to magical thinking. Because he is devoted to her, Jeremiah is excessively influenced by her strange behavior. Her problems result in a tragedy that cannot be revealed without spoiling the reading experience.The narrative is totally engaging because of multiple plot threads, interesting characters and the rural Montana setting, which is ably evoked by Henderson. The novel is long and tries to do a lot, thus occasionally leaving minor issues unresolved. However, for the most part, Henderson manages to remain focused on his main theme in this fine novel.

[writestuff_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pete Snow is a social worker in the Montana wilderness of Tenmile, a small town in the middle of nowhere outside of Missoula. He is divorced, fighting with his ex-wife and his surly teenage daughter, and trying to steer clear of his troubled brother who has recently beat up a parole officer and taken off to parts unknown. When a bedraggled boy is picked up in town, Pete decides to hike up into the wilderness to return the boy to his family. He has no idea that the boy’s father, a radical man named Benjamin Pearl, might just not want to be found.Fourth of July Creek is about the unraveling of family and community as Benjamin Pearl becomes more paranoid and unpredictable and Pete’s personal life slides out of control with the disappearance of his daughter and an FBI investigation.Smith Henderson’s first novel (he has published numerous short works and won the 2011 Pushcart Prize) is a bit of a doorstopper at over 450 pages, and there were times I thought it could have stood a little editing. Despite this, Henderson’s prose is gritty and mesmerizing as the story unspools into chaos. Pete is not terribly likable, and yet I found myself hoping he would sort out his problems and find a happy ending, not only for himself, but for the damaged people he is trying to help.Henderson reveals the struggles of rural Americans including poverty, illegal drug use, homelessness, and broken families. Benjamin Pearl becomes symbolic of a modern America where fear of government intrusion and paranoia about losing freedom spirals into a madness that would be funny if it were not so terrifying.Fourth of July Creek is a dark commentary on the problems facing our country. Pete Snows struggle to save the families of Tenmile, while losing the fight to save his own family, becomes a compelling story about one man’s quest to find meaning in a disconnected world.Readers who enjoy novels set in the rural Pacific Northwest which are literary in style, will want to give this one a try. Smith Henderson is an author to watch.Recommended.

[arielfl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

At first I thought this was just another one oft hose critically acclaimed books that i just could not understand the appeal to and then the book caught me in it's web and I could not put it down. The novel has three main threads. The main story is Pete Stone is a social worker in the 70's for the state of Montana. There is no distance he won't go for his clients but the irony is while he is out saving other people's kids his own child is a mess. As he tells his ex wife, we are the people that I take children away from.The sad state of Pete's family life is due to his ex cheating on him and taking off with their daughter. The other two threads of the story relate to Pete's clients. Cecile has been asked to leave the home by his mother if she can be called that and Benjamin Pearl shows up in town one day exhibiting the signs of malnutrition. The mystery of the Pearl family was the most compelling part of the book for me. Pete knows that there are other members of the family besides Benjamin and his father but where they are is a mystery until the end. Normally I don't like illiterate, poor people who abuse their kids type of stories. So depressing and sad. This book is dark but the story was just so compelling.

[perednia_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The American West has long been a haven for people who want to be left alone and those who despair of society. But loners and misfits aren't always alone. Sometimes they have families and those families have children -- children who may be loved or who may be barely endured, but either way, they can be children who are not cared for.Pete Stone is a social worker assigned to a vast territory in the northwest corner of Montana, of sparsely settled pockets not of civilization, but of people. He's like a lot of those people. His marriage is broken, his teenage daughter is sullen and doesn't get much attention from a father with a demanding job, and he drinks. A lot. His successes trying to help children and listen to the adults purportedly caring for them are few but he still plugs away at it.Between other hard-luck cases, Pete is called when a wild child appears at a school one day. Even in the pre-computerized days of the late '70s and early '80s, the dawn of the Reagan era, it's unusual for a boy in such a state to have no records. The boy, Benjamin, doesn't consider himself neglected. He and his pa live in the woods off the land. Headed up toward camp, Benjamin's father warns Pete away, obviously willing to shoot him. That father is Jeremiah Pearl, who knows the end times are coming. His dearly loved wife saw the signs coming and had the whole troop of Pearls, including all the babies, leave Indiana and head for the woods where they might have a chance to survive. Pete leaves foodstuffs and clothes in a niche in the woods. Sometimes things get taken. The distrustful Pearl gradually doesn't quite trust Pete, but accepts his help and then him. In between spells when they spend some time traipsing through the land, Pete's wife leaves Montana for Texas, where there is a chance of a man taking care of her and their daughter, and their daughter realizes she's got nowhere to go. So she leaves. And it's about as blandly dire as one would think.The sections where Pete tries to navigate the system through several states, trying to find a young runaway daughter, shows how easily children fall through the cracks of a social system set up to protect them, and shows the heartbreak of parents who love their children but don't know how to take care of them. So do the sections where that daughter, Rachel, becomes a child of the streets.Whether it's parents who can't handle being parents, children forced to grow up and fend for themselves, people who believe what they are told or people who don't believe the evidence in front of their faces, Henderson's debut novel is filled with innocents who wonder about what has happened to them or who cannot handle what they see going on. Most of the people in the novel feel helpless about what they see, whether it's a small-town judge heartbroken when Reagan wins, a female social worker who was an abused child or a federal agent who regrets the choices he has made.About the only people who don't feel helpless are Pearl and his son. Pearl is a combination of just about every paranoid, black helicopter-fearing loner who have inhabited the crannies of Northwest empty places for decades. He's also far more than that, and the dull despair that sometimes enshrouds Henderson's people is a great contrast to this character who searched so hungrily for something to believe in, and chose wrongly.Henderson's novel earns its humanizing, heartfelt climax and coda both because the scope of the characters' journeys are so well-drawn and because the little details are so right. This is a highly political and social novel that is tightly anchored to its characters and setting. To have carried this off with no preaching or screeching is a remarkable achievement, and an uplifting reading experience.

[bg853 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As many have stated this is a dark book with numerous unlikeable characters who make some really bad decisions. This seems to be the year of dark stories with books such as [The Enchanted] and [An Untamed State]. While for me the tone of the two aforementioned books rang true and I found them both excellent; I did not find [Fourth of July Creek] as compelling.Part of my problem with the book is personal. I have an aversion to stupidity and while I can happily read about somene with no redeeming characteristics (I loved Hannibal Lechter), I cringe at watching characters making one stupid move after another. My other problem was the language. There are times that the language just sings. It is beautiful and lyrical. However, it did not seem real that a high school drop out could on occassion wax poetically like somone with a MFA in English. Given that the book does a good job of involving you and making you care about the characters.

[sleahey_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Pete is a social worker for Montana Protective Services, and he encounters cruelty and insanity and abuse every day, even while his own family has fallen apart. His relationships with his clients are caring and empathetic, and he becomes involved with a father and small son who are living in the wilds anticipating the end of the world. Meanwhile, Pete and his wife have split up and his teenage daughter is alienated from him, compounded by her move to Texas with her out-of-control mother. The daughter becomes a runaway, causing Pete untold worry. Even though most of the characters in this novel are deeply flawed, some downright evil, it seems that the author genuinely likes the people in this book, starting first of all with Pete. Henderson provides a complex world for us to inhabit, and then be grateful that we don't actually live there.

[michaelbartley · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is one if not the darkess novel I've read. It the story of social worker in Montina and his clients. One client is young teenager boy, father not in his life, his mother druggie. the boy has a 4 year sister, she is perhaps the most sane and healthy person in the novel. the social worker other main client is the son 14 of surivalist that lives in the wilds. his mother is a born again christen and knows that god talks to her. she kills the boy's sibbings and then herself. the sw gets involved with a fellow sw, who on the side turns tricks. the sw's daughter, 14, moves to texas with the ex. the daugher ends running away and becomes a sex worker. to top things off the sw borther is a futivie from the law. the novel is very well written and does explore the ideas of fate and freedom. while it is very dark i recommend it