3. Montana 1948

        I am reading Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. I am now finished with the book. Basically what happens is after they find Marie dead, David tells his parents a serious secret. David knows information about the death of Marie involving Uncle Frank. David tells his parents that he saw Uncle Frank enter their house through the back door just hours before Marie is found dead. David's father is torn between his job and his family. Being a cop, he should turn Frank in, but Frank being his brother-in-law complicates things. David's dad kind of drags on for a while wondering what to do. Eventually he brings Frank to his house for a meeting. To save Frank from embarrassment, David's dad locks him in a room in their basement. This is simulating jail. David's entire family is paranoid about having a criminal living in their basement so  David' s dad decides that he will turn Frank in and have him go to public jail. But the night before, David and his father are woken by the slamming of glass jars coming from Frank's room. David's father goes down to see what is wrong. He finds Uncle Frank dead on the floor with flood spilling out of him. Frank committed suicide.
        I thought this was a very intriguing book. It was interesting and had many unexpected twists. I believe this is why I liked it.  This book really kept my attention and it kind of opened my eyes to some racism that takes place.
        I believe that the author wrote this to expose some of the disturbing truth about rape and racism. It is something that needs to be told and I found really interesting. His motivation probably had something to do with a past experience and he wanted to show that this really can happen.
        I believe that the theme of this book was courage and taking responsibility for your actions. David's father had to have courage when he arrested his brother. That takes a lot of guts, but it needed to happen because Frank did wrong and he needed to know that.
        The best character was definitely Uncle Frank. I just found him really weird and interesting. He was definitely the life of the book. I don't really think that he grew or changed before his death. I do believe that if he were still living, he would have learned from his mistakes and grown from them.
       "At the cemetery they made a point of standing on the opposite side of the grave from us. Even I understood the symbolism: Frank's death was an unbridgeable gulf between us." This quotes basically explains itself. It is cool because it shows symbolism. Frank's death has literally split this family and it will take years to bring them back together.
        The only thing I am wondering about my book, is that I would like to see more into the future. How did Frank's wrong-doings and his death affect the family. Larry Watson gave a small preview of this but I think it would be interesting to see more.