Hard Red Spring: A Novel

by Kelly Kerney

An ambitious and unforgettable epic novel that spans a hundred years of Guatemala’s tumultuous history as experienced by four American women who are linked by the mysterious disappearance of a little girl
 
In 1902, a young girl watches her family’s life destroyed by corrupt officials and inscrutable natives. In 1954, the wife of the American ambassador becomes trapped in the intrigue of a cold war love affair. In 1983, an evangelical missionary discovers that the Good News may not be good news at all to the Mayan refugees she hopes to save. And in 1999, the mother of an adopted Mayan daughter embarks on a Roots Tour only to find that the history she seeks is not safely in the past.
 
Kelly Kerney’s novel tells a powerful story that draws on the history of Guatemala and the legacy of American intervention to vividly evoke The Land of Eternal Spring in all its promise and all its devastating failures. This is a place where a volcano erupts and the government sends a band to drown out the sound of destruction; where a government decree reverses the direction of one-way streets; a president decides that Pat Robertson and Jesus will save the country; and where a UN commission is needed to determine the truth. A heartrending and masterfully written look at a country in perpetual turmoil, Hard Red Spring brilliantly reveals how the brutal realities of history play out in the lives of individuals and reveals Guatemala in a manner reminiscent of the groundbreaking memoir  I, Rigoberta Menchu .

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Adult Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels

448 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2016

About the author

Kelly Kerney is an American novelist. Her first novel, Born Again, was published in 2006.

After having been raised in a Pentecostal Church, Kerney graduated from Bowdoin College in 2002 and later received her MFA from the University of Notre Dame.

Born Again follows an evangelical Christian who comes to terms with evolution. The novel received several positive reviews, including ones from Entertainment Weekly, The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Russo.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Tom Mathews · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve always thought that fiction was the way to approach Guatemala. You see, there are more lies than truth in the history of that little country.

The above quote, buried deep within the pages of her novel, gives readers a sense of what author Kelly Kerney had in mind when she wrote this book.

Hard Red Spring is an ambitious historical novel covering one-hundred years of American intervention in Guatemalan affairs. It begins with a volcanic eruption that, by presidential decree, did not happen and ends with the genocidal killing of as many as 200 thousand indigenous people which also, if the Rev. Pat Robertson is to be believed, did not happen.

The ‘novel’ part of the story consists of four long sections, each featuring American women who have traveled to Guatemala for one reason or another and who seem bound together by a shared sense of instability. Six year-old Evie, daughter of would-be cochineal farmers in 1902, struggles to understand a world which, figuratively and literally is blowing up around her. In 1954, Dorie fears her life is spinning out of control while her ambassador husband grows increasingly distant. In 1982, Lenore responds to a call for missionaries only to find a world vastly different than what she had been lead to expect. And in 1999, Jean travels with her war-orphan daughter back to the land of her birth in an attempt to help her learn her place in the world.

I am in awe of the amount of research that Ms. Kerney must have done in writing this book. Every page shows an intimate understanding of Guatemala and her history that can only come from personal experience and an abiding passion for the subject.
Sadly, the story collapses under the weight of the historical detail. It is clear that Kerney’s main objective in writing the story was to inform readers of the tragic events that have been going on in Guatemala but when you add too much information, the story stops being a story and starts to become a lecture. At one point, under the guise of a college class lecture, Kersey slyly inserts several pages taken verbatim from a United Nations atrocities report, only occasionally throwing in references to classroom noises to maintain the illusion of fiction.

On a personal note, I have been to Guatemala and I cannot fault her description of it at all. Granted, I was there before the worst years of the war and I found Xela to be a beautiful city that went out it its way to make visitors welcome. Guatemala City on the other hand, was much different. I recall entering it in a bus full of laughing and happy college students. By the time we reached the city center, all joy had drained out of us and we sat silently looking out the windows. It isn’t that he city looks any different than other cities we had visited. It just exuded an aura that was as cold and soulless as greed and corruption could make it. None of us felt safe for a minute until the city was far behind us.

Bottom line: If you are interested in learning about what has happened in Guatemala in the last 100 years, this is a very informative book. I found the information about Pat Robertson’s Operation: International Love Lift, a counterinsurgency program funded by contributions solicited from viewers of The 700 Club, particularly fascinating. For a novel, though, this is a pretty tough read. I give this book two of two stars for the research but only one for the story.

*Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.

FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
*1 Star - The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This book is ambitious, and well-structured. Unfortunately, it feels like it's missing its soul.

The story follows American women in Guatemala, but it really is about many more women, as many Guatemalan women as American. The takeaway seems to be that Guatemala will destroy you, whether you're an Amerian woman or a Guatemalan.

Evie Crowder is a six year old girl, whose parents have come to make their fortune. Her mother doubts they will succeed, and intends to head home; her father insists he is on to something. But the volcano erupts; the government takes all his workers to fix the railroad; the servant girl winds up pregnant with Evie's father's child. And by the time her mother has fixed a date to leave, it's too late for them all.

Dorie comes to Guatemala in the 50s, with her husband, the US ambassador. She has fallen for her best friend's husband, her husband's best friend, and finds herself pregnant. She is ready to run away with him to Brazil, until she is told she's been set up by her lover, and her husband, and her best friend. When she goes to confront her husband, she finds he is quite capable of this deceit, and much more.

Lenore and her husband go to Guatemala as missionaries in the early 80s, because the televangelist says to. They go to help set up model villages, but Lenore finds their work is not doing what she intended it to. She also learns that Guatemala is killing her: she is malnourished, sick, weak, and the subterfuge is driving her mad.

Jean takes her adopted Guatemalan daughter Maya on a Roots tour, to help connect to Maya, and to help Maya connect to Guatemala. But nothing goes as planned, and Jean finds herself in the midst of a mess that she can't even suss out. She's just desperate to get out, before it consumes her like it did Dorie, and Lenore, and Evie, and all the Guatemalan women they knew.

Kerney does a great job of placing the characters, and thus the readers, in Guatemala, throughout the 20th century. The oppression that everyone lives with, the corruption, the danger... it's all palpable on every page, for all the characters. She also does a great job of using imagery, such as the quetzal, and dogs, for example. She does a great job of making the reader ask the hard questions, and seek out those answers, for she provides them all. And she does a great job of bringing to a close what happened to Evie Crowder, way back in 1902. She does all this with skillful prose.

What's missing is the heart and soul of the story. Without it, this feels like a device to tell the history of Guatemala, more than an opportunity to share the common human condition. It reads as if no white American has any business being in Guatemala, and cannot find a way to live with these people, even when they have the best of intentions. That may be true, but if so, this is a tough way to learn that lesson. Given how hard the women in this story learn this, it very well may be Kerney's main point of writing this book.

My thanks to Penguin for an advanced copy of this book.

[Jeanette · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was skim read after page 190. It's not poorly written in a flow or grammar sense, but I completely disliked the continuity format and the majority of the characters. It was dismal, morose and often threatening in tone or context. Or else in a couple of sections too preachy for me as if it were a voice of a professor lecturing events from a "afterwards" theory or progression study. My enjoyment was 2 star or less. Having read numerous other Central and South American, I found the majority of these principles/ characters in Hard Red Spring to be period stereotypical. Not that stereotyping is always bad in this kind of historical context sense. Genocide times and politico manipulations in fiction? For me, I need far more connection to the characters as real people with knowledge of their loyalties and goals/desires to want to sift through this depth of misery.

IMHO, and just from my own connections- I think Guatemalans (those I've meet in workplace and church who travel back and forth or are immigrants to the USA), those I've known from each generation since 1960's, have always held a much higher level of joy from daily living than is posited at any period in this book. Not that the book is off. Just makes it hard for me to equate these characters being so rigid in their "category".

2.5 star rounded up for the message. South and Central American human rights are never visited enough in any historical period. Especially for the present regimes.

[Nada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard Red Spring by Kelly Kerney is a century long history of Guatemala told through eyes of four expatriates in four different time periods. The book turns factual history into an emotional, memorable fictional story. The connections between the people follow through all four sections, keeping the story line going, but the focus throughout remains the place.

Read my complete review at: http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2016...

Reviewed based on a publisher’s galley received through NetGalley and for the Penguin First to Read program

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having grown up in Guatemala, made this a very hard read in a lot of ways. To read again about the USA governments involvement in many of the horrific things that happened in Guatemala's history, along with Guatemala's own corrupt governments was sad.
The author gives a historical timeline at the end of the book from 1900 to 2015.
This book was divided into four time periods, 1902, 1954, 1983, and 1999. All describing a major part of Guatemala's history and of USA involvement.
The main characters in each of these periods, are fictitious, but what happens around them is based on history. One can definitely feel the frailty of life in each of these characters. I didn't really like the characters, but I was strongly drawn to them and their misguided ways. I had a lot of feeling towards them, from anger, empathy, sorrow and much, much more, and that does not only pertain to the North Americans that are portrayed but the Guatemalans as well.
The time periods, are connected by people carried over from the previous one, starting with a young North American girl who disappears in the first part of the book.
This was a very well written story, where the author had to do a lot of research to make it come together so well.
This book will take you through: the building of railroads, the United Fruit Company, the eruption of the Santa Maria Volcano, to the Cold War, Civil War and its Genocide, to the fear of adoption, and much more. A very strong story!

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Kelly Kerney has attempted an epic undertaking -- encompassing one hundred years of Guatemalan economic and political history through the experiences of four American women. She picks four key years and events, in 1902, 1954, 1984 and 1999 and four very different women: an eight year old child whose father is trying to grow wheat, the wife of the American ambassador, a born-again missionary and a single mom introducing her adopted Guatemalan daughter to the land of her birth. In each instance the stories of previous protagonists and political turmoils of US intervention are brought forward. All of the women are marked by naivety and powerlessness. I admire what Kerney has attempted, but the ghoulishness of her descriptions give a kind of Grand Guignol horror story feel to the tale. Also, her lack of literary skill at the sentence level is disappointing.

[Alejandra Cromer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not sure if this will be the case for most, but I was (to an extent) familiar with the history of Guatemala and the role the US Government played. That said, spoilers below.

I would give this a 3.5, but since there are no half stars I bumped it up because I think the history in this story is so important.

This book left me wanting more. I liked the way each chapter is focused on a different part of Guatemala's history from varying viewpoints. Each chapter just ends abruptly at the climax, after a certain point in the second chapter I was relieved to see parts of the first chapter circle back around, this was the case for each chapter. However, even with the small connections it only added more questions. When I got to the end and read the last page and then the timeline I just sat there and tried to analyze how each story was woven into the final product. I was frustrated, what truly happened to Evie? Did Dori lose the baby? what happened between the day on the roof and her being in an asylum? What transpired with Lenore to keep her in Xela? Why was she killed in the end? What was up with the whole last chapter, the CIA, Telma, Jean, is Maya still a brat? I realized this is so open-ended and the true story is hard to decipher much like the true history of Guatemala. Men, Women, and children all wiped from the earth with no record of who they were and what happened. Mass graves still being uncovered and civil unrest is still present. Much like me, the people of Guatemala are left wanting more to their own story.

[Pab Lo · Rating 3 out of 5]

So much of this book is intertwined (from close and afar) with my family history.
As infuriating as it is, I am glad it exists. It is hard for me to tell the view of the author. At times, I can’t tell if she is portraying ignorant and racist characters or if she holds these ignorant and racist views herself. Most annoying is the way the terms “Indians” and “communists” casually get thrown around, at times at the same character.

[Shala · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not get into this book and found myself truly not caring what happened to the characters.

[Bob H · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sprawling, dark, often murky story of Americans in Guatemala, in four episodes set in the country's history, 1902, at a time of agricultural uncertainty; 1954, on the eve of a U.S.-backed coup; 1984, during the civil war that followed that coup; and in 1999, after the peace accord. It's told through the Americans who are on a leading edge of American intrusion, the failed first wave of planters, the diplomats who represent the American fruit monopoly as much as the embassy, the evangelists who are working amidst civil war and for a Guatemalan general/president whose Evangelical faith serves his war, and finally the Americans returning with adopted Guatemalan children to make sense of it. It's all very real, set mostly in the mountain region at Quetzaltenango (or, Xela, in its Indian name) and in Guatemala City (Guate).

As someone who has lived for a period in that unhappy country, it rings true, and is told by someone who seems to know much about the country, its geography, its varied peoples and native languages, its violent politics and American involvement. The American characters are often buffeted by events, and often are naive: harmfully, destructively so to their Guatemalan servants, employees, subjects.

While the episodes are four separate periods, characters from previous chapters drift into the story, and much of it concerning a mystery from 1902, an American family who disappeared, or maybe not, whose land is at issue in subsequent episodes. The story is long, detailed, often as murky as the volcanic haze that comes and goes.

[Thomas Keech · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some unforgettable moments in this book: the U.S. ambassador pimping teenage Guatemalan maids for wealthy U.S. businessmen; an eight-year-old orphan Mayan boy given to European planters not as an adopted son but as a houseboy to do with as they wished; a completely fake civil war enacted so as to instigate a real one; a fundamentalist religious mission that begins to resemble a concentration camp. It’s mind-blowing, especially when you realize it’s all based on truth.

I thought the writing was always original and evocative, and sometimes subtly sarcastic. A cave’s “cold limestone jaws, frozen open, perpetually dripped water.” A car speeding up the mountain “ascended in a fury of potholes and dust.” Helicopters “rip” through the air. At a remote and peaceful scenic overlook, “soldiers with AK-47s sat guarding the view.” “She knew how Pastor Wayne prayed for people, wrapping his large hands around their heads and pulling them to his chest, like a basketball he was about to pass.”

Each one of the four narratives may have gone on a little too long, and the connections between the four were maybe a little sketchy and contrived. Don’t read this book if you’re looking for a nail-biting plot. But if you want a unique, human, ground-level view of the whole dramatic history of one of our nearest American neighbors, don’t miss this one.

[Sandie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of Guatemala and its people are told by Kelly Kerney through the individual stories of various women through the decades. The book begins in 1902 when an American family has come to the country to try to raise wheat to supplement the agricultural crops of coffee and corn. The father wants to increase the diets of the native people but they are scornful of the wheat, believing that corn was given to them by their ancestors and gods. As the tension increases with the government conscripting Indians to harvest the coffee crops, the family is caught up, resulting in the family's massacre, leaving only their small daughter who is rumored to have survived.
The novel then jumps to the 1950's. It tells the story of two families. One is the American Ambassador to Guatemala. The other is a highly placed executive in United Fruit which holds a monopoly in the country. The wife of the ambassador is having an affair with the United Fruit executive and their affair has long-reaching results, echoed in the companies and the country.

In the 1970's, a group of missionaries come to save the native population. The focus of the novel is on one married couple. The man preaches to the native population who have come to their camp as refugees from the terrorists and the violence between the government and those terrorists. He also attempts to train the refugee man in the civil patrol, constructing roads and learning to be soldiers. His wife works with the women, teaching them to sew with machines to gain a skill that they can be employed with. The camp is caught up in the violence.

Finally, in modern times, a woman from Los Angeles and her adopted daughter come to Guatemala to try to find the clues to the daughter's heritage. The woman's former lover, a woman who believes in various government conspiracies, trails them there and attempts to find evidence to support her wild theories.

All of these women's stories serve to illustrate the chaos that reigned in this country for decades and the part that American interference served in it's corruption and exploitations of the native population. Characters from one story show up in others despite the time differences and no matter the time period, the only constant is the fact that those indigenous to the region are never those in power but are always exploited to serve others' agendas. This book is recommended to readers of historical fiction.

[B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, especially the mystery of Evie that runs all the way through it and the way all the characters are connected and reappear when you least expect them to. I read this after I read The Poisonwood Bible and found it similar (in the sense that both books share a general theme of how religion + US Cold War politics does more harm than good in third-world countries--Guatemala in this case). Most of all, I'd really like to commend the author for doing the amount of research I know she had to do for this book, because it shows and I learned a ton about a country that I'd only known a few vague things about (e.g. the coup against Arbenz).

I loved Evie's voice and found it to be similar to that of Ruth May from TPB--both little girls who are way out of their elements in foreign, exotic lands. However, the sense of impending doom that hung over Evie's part was definitely not present in Ruth May's voice, but set a good general tone for the rest of the novel.

The other three women were similar in that Guatemala essentially impacts the course of their lives and usually leaves them traumatized. I was already somewhat familiar with the historical background for Dorie's part, but poor woman, with a "best friend" like Marcela. I found Lenore's part to be super enlightening--I'd only somewhat heard of the genocide in the 1980s and I was inspired to do more research on it after reading about Lenore (again, this part also reminded me a lot of TPB, with the blind missionaries and the gross misuse of religion for nefarious and evil purposes). Finally, Jean's part with Maya and especially Telema was a great way to finish the book that constantly left you guessing as a reader as to what was true and what was made up (w/r/t Evie's disappearance). I would say more but I don't want to spoil anything.

TL;DR version of this review: if you enjoyed The Poisonwood Bible, you should definitely check this book out.

[Marvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this author’s first novel, Born Again, in 2009 and appreciated it. This one, to her credit, is very different. It is one of many multigenerational sagas set in Latin America, this one in Guatemala. I had not known much about its history, so this was interesting and informative, though the factual historical timeline in the back of the book helped a lot to contextualize the story, and I recommend that readers make use of it as they read. Even though the novel is implicitly highly (and rightly, to my mind) critical of American involvement in Guatemala, the main characters, oddly, are all Americans, American women who follow their husbands to Guatemala but understand little about the country’s dynamics. (Perhaps this is a way to avoid the charge of cultural appropriation faced by authors like Jeanine Cummins, who wrote American Dirt.) The Guatemalans themselves are mostly just props to the main story lines, though it is some of these lesser characters who provide continuity between the other stories, set in 1902, 1954, 1983, and 1999, whereas the stories of the Americans seem inadequately resolved. Perhaps not surprisingly for the author of Born Again, the most compelling section is the one about a missionary couple (1983). The last section, however, seems to be mostly a way of explaining the loose ends from the earlier sections; the characters themselves are much less interesting. And a story that has been understandably grim throughout becomes downright gruesome in this last section. Finally, I admit that I found the ending totally baffling.

[Christine Irvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story about war, about peace, about hope, about despair, about love, about indifference, about government corruption, about government accountability, and so many other things. The author relates the bloody history of Guatemala and its civil war that lasted 31 years. The reader learns about the coffee plantations, the building of the Northern Railway, the different languages and cultures of Guatemala, the model villages, the guerillas fighting in the jungles, and so much more.

The story is set in Guatemala and spans nearly 100 years. It is told from several different points of view and from different times. The first part of the narrative is set in with the last part in 1999, with the exception of a short Epilogue which is again set in 1902. The histories of some of the different characters intersect with each other as the years pass and the perspective changes.

It's an interesting story, told in an interesting, but it can be confusing because the narrator changes with each different time frame and many parts of the story are left untold. The author includes a "Historical Time Line" at the end of the book that starts on August 31, 1900 and goes to August 25, 2015. Obviously, not all of these things are talked about in the book, because as mentioned, the narrative ends in 1999. But, this timeline helps explain some of what takes place in the story.

[Susan Halvor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d give this book 3, maybe 3.5 stars. What I appreciated most was how well researched this book was, and the way the author, through the eyes of the four primary white female characters, explored some of the complexities of relationships between U.S. women and Guatemalans, against the backdrop of Guatemalan history and U.S. involvement. The stories helped me grasp the 100-year span of Guatemalan history that the book covers. But the book is also perhaps overly ambitious; the many loose ends left from each narrative were frustrating, especially in the context of so much death, suffering, and violence. My feelings about the different narratives waxed and waned; I probably enjoyed the final narrative the most, but was again frustrated at an abrupt stop to the story.

[Bill Glose · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rich plot, an exotic locale and finely crafted prose—these are the elements comprising Richmond author Kelly Kerney’s novel, Hard Red Spring. One hundred years of Guatemala’s turbulent history comes to life through the stories of four American expatriate women. While each woman suffers her own form of tragedy and redemption, we witness the cruelties inflicted upon a poor populace alternately suffering under corrupt regimes and misguided American intervention. Hard Red Spring is a splendid, complicated read.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first three would have been wonderful stand alone narratives on their own (4th is less strong), but all together they elevate and define each other nicely. I would actually recommend reading the historical timeline at the end, first. It would have helped the political references be incorporated into the narrative better for the reader. Really well researched and lovingly presented.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost a 5! Well done, links four women together over a period of almost a century through their lives in Guatemala. I know it was a novel, but as based on fact it taught me a lot about Guatemalan strife. Big business and outside interests strike again... be sure and read the historic timeline in the back of the book and refer to it as you read the chapters.

[Linda Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

a hard truth to learn

living in Guatemala and having friends who survived the genocide made this very hard to read. A first hand testimonio can be found in Escaping the fire by Tomas cuzaro

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought this at the dollar store & read it in fits & starts at the beach. An interesting book. It’s basically 4 short stories over time with different, vaguely related characters.

Really liked the female perspective as well as the setting in Guatemala.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid 4 even a 4.5 and I am stingy with my stars. I learned so much from this novel I highly recommend it.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. I rate a book heavily on the subject matter, enjoying learning about something I know very little about. Take one third world country, Guatemala here, and add too many antagonists :greedy outside governments, dictators, the military, guerillas, religion and missionaries, big business (more greed), communists. What a mess. Maybe GREED is the base problem here.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, haunting and powerful. Must read for those who don't know about the history of US intervention in Guatemala, told through a connected thread of generations of women.

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

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[Rachel Rothwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very violent, traumatic book about Guatemala from 1902-1999. A bit confusing in places but a very helpful and upsetting timeline of Guatemala shown at the end.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could not put this one down! The end left me wanting more, felt the story was not complete, but sometimes they aren't. I would not read this one is violence and abuse is difficult for you to read.

[Kate Krider · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good writing but really more like four short stories, each which is not resolved. A character or two reappears in each segment but generally a disjointed and unsatisfying read.

[Jane Kempe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Hard Red Spring, a generational tale of Guatemala. Kelly Kearney has written in remarkable detail and with great compassion the turbulent history of Guatemala.

[Jeffrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvelous writing engrossing tale. Page turner. Love her work