Alone on the Shield

October 1, 2017
Long-separated college loves reunite in the Canadian Boundary Waters.Gabe Pender has an attitude problem. Let go from his longtime job at a publishing company, he punches his boss in the gut. His wife has left him, and his daughter is estranged. At 60, he's a curmudgeon: when he passes some drunken partiers, he thinks, "it would be better to die than spend time with assholes like that." And his time in the Vietnam War still casts a long shadow across his life, not only in the form of his temper, but also in the form of a woman. Annette Blain, his college sweetheart, left for Canada as a conscientious objector to the war just as Pender was heading over to serve. Now, 40 years later, Pender, an expert canoeist, agrees to meet Annette--coincidentally, also an expert canoeist--for a paddling trip across Quetico Provincial Park in Canada. As Pender winds his way toward Annette through the Boundary Waters, he wonders whether Annette will be another one of his failures or if this will be a welcome renewal of a relationship he's never quite been able to let go of. Debut novelist Landers clearly knows and loves the Boundary Waters, and he admirably captures the drama and beauty of the wild landscape. Pender, though, is rather insufferable company for the duration and is made even more so by the fact that his self-regard seems to grow with each condescending thought he has about all the people who've ruined the world--which is to say, everyone. Unlikable characters can make great fiction, but the book's other characters repeatedly describing Pender in sincerely glowing terms could make readers wonder if we're missing something or if Landers is.A wilderness adventure/romance that might have readers rooting for a capsize.

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Starred review from October 1, 2017
Journalist Landers' first novel centers around Gabe Pender, a 60-year-old, divorced Vietnam veteran. After Gabe loses his job in publishing as a result of the 2008 financial crash, he takes his yearly canoe trip around the Canadian Shield, a series of lakes and islands that stretch from Wisconsin to Ontario. During this expedition into the wilderness, he has planned to meet Annette DuBose, his college love, whom he has not seen in 40 years, and who now operates a canoeing expedition business in this secluded wonderland. The narrative switches between their two perspectives, exploring both the dramatic events of the trip and various themes, such as the events that have defined the baby boomers and the differences between American and Canadian culture. Landers' prose has a lovelorn tone similar to that of Richard Ford's Bascombe trilogy, especially The Sportswriter (1986). Alone on the Shield is tense and dramatic, absorbing from beginning to end, one of those precious tales that manages to be both a page-turner and a thoughtful novel of great depth and resonance.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)