Moorhead Public Library staffers Barb Davis and Hillary Stevens display William Kent Krueger’s “The River We Remember,” the selection for this year’s One Book, One Community project. (Photo/Nancy Hanson.)

Masks created by veterans recovering from PTSD and traumatic brain injury at the Fargo VA are displayed as part of the One Book, One Community project. (Photo/Nancy Hanson.)

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Avid readers all over the Fargo-Moorhead community have taken a simultaneous dive this fall into a book by one of Minnesota’s most successful modern authors. They’re finding plenty to discuss and discover.
They’re participating in One Book, One Community – an annual program by the public libraries of Moorhead, Fargo and West Fargo, as well as local college campuses. In book club groups or separately, they’re pouring over “The River We Remember,” the latest novel by William Kent Krueger of St. Paul, Minnesota.
Krueger’s novel, set in a southern Minnesota river town in 1958, was selected as one of Amazon’s top 20 literature and fiction books of 2023. Like the rest of his last nine novels, it spent months on the New York Times’ best-sellers list.
Hillary Stevens, who represents the Moorhead Public Library on the committee that plans the annual reading fest, says Krueger’s story has several of the key elements organizers look for. “First of all, Krueger is an acclaimed Minnesota author,” she points out. “His Cork O’Connor mysteries set in the North Woods are big favorites.” (A recent announcement promises an upcoming TV series based on those stories.) Krueger’s work has won a long list of awards, from the Minnesota Book Award and the Anthony and Barry awards to the Friends of American Writers Prize.
“This story is set in a small Minnesota town, and it features people like those we know,” Stevens points out. “Its plot, people and places have inspired all kinds of library programs over the past two months – on farming from World War II until today, photos of Minnesota towns, a documentary on the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, and Minnesota Ojibwe culture.”
Handmade masks are also a part of the libraries’ programming. Created by veterans at the Fargo VA who are being treated for PTSD and traumatic brain injury, the masks graphically illustrate memories of war like those that trouble the key characters in Krueger’s book. The masks are on display in the Moorhead, Fargo and West Fargo libraries. They were produced by vets participating in clinical psychologist Dr. Margo Norton’s counseling at the Fargo VA, where she uses art to encourage healing.
According to Stevens, the biggest collection of One Book readers is expected to congregate at Concordia College on Tuesday, Oct. 29, when author Krueger himself speaks to readers. He’s expected to discuss his novel as well as his approach to writing. His free presentation begins at 7 p.m. in the Centrum.
“The River We Remember” is 14th of the books chosen each year for One Book, One Community. The far-reaching annual readers event is part of a national movement started in 1998 at the Seattle Public Library. Today more than 300 communities schedule similar events under a variety of banners, each selecting its own books and scheduling its own events. While the Library of Congress and the American Library Association support these programs, each is independent.
The Fargo-Moorhead community’s first autumn of One Book, One Communitywas launched in 2012. It focused readers’ attention on “The Giver” by Lois Lowry. Melville’s “Moby Dick” was the focal point in 2013. Christina Baker Kline’s best-selling book, “Orphan Train,” followed.”
“We started selecting books and inviting authors with more local connections in 2014,” says Stevens, who joined the Lake Agassiz Regional Library herself the following year. Since then, alternating fiction and nonfiction seasons have often been highlighted by local author appearances. Louise Erdrich’s “The Night Watchman” may have set the record – so far – with 600 or more attending her author talk in 2022. Her National Book Award-winning novel is loosely based on her grandfather and partly set on the Turtle Mountain Reservation.
Not all books are as universally famous as Erdrich’s and Krueger’s. Other recent selections have included 2019’s “Fly Girls,” Kent O’Brien’s stories of early female pilots (including Moorhead’s Florence Klingensmith); and, in 2021, “Anton Treuer’s “Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask.” Last year’s book was “Hudson Bay Bound” a story of two women, one dog and 2,000 miles to the Arctic by Natalie Warren.
Funding for One Book, One Community comes from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the Lake Agassiz Regional Library. Other sponsors include Moorhead Community Education, Concordia College, and the four Friends of the Library contingents in Moorhead, Fargo and West Fargo and at the NDSU Libraries.
For more information on Krueger’s program and others remaining in the series, check out www.1book1community.org.