Traveling by water (in this case, by canoe on rivers), he and his companions encountered a number of challenges – including mortal threats, temptations, and struggles with the ire of the gods. Odie (short for Odysseus) O’Banion is in his eighties as the book begins, looking back at the summer of 1932 and the journey taken by him and his comrades, “The Vagabonds.” Like the Greek hero Odysseus after whom Odie is named, he was on a quest to get home. For the most part, Krueger manages the melange adeptly, although occasionally the author seems to be “kitchen sinking it” as publishers call over-plotting of stories. Five motifs dominate this novel: the struggle with belief in God in the face of so much evil and pain in the world the shameful legacy of mistreatment of Native Americans and disrespect for their culture by whites the Great Depression of the 1930s and the evangelical response to it and reflections of the main themes from both “The Odyssey” and “The Wizard of Oz.” If this sounds like a lot to pack into one story, it is, and moreover, there are other issues that receive cameos in the story.
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