In 1874, the Hedrick family arrived in L 'Arbre croche or "crooked tree," as the Jesuit missionaries had called it one hundred and fifty years earlier. The wilderness of Little Traverse Bay had just been opened for homesteading, and the Hedricks joined a dozen other white families in the trading post of Little Traverse, situated in virgin forest. From the age of four until he left the area at eighteen, U. P. Hedrick saw the shabby trading post rum into the tidy village of Harbor Springs. In those years, mechanized logging replaced the homesteader's crosscut saw; the passenger pigeon disappeared; and the railroad arrived. Hedrick writes of his youth and shows himself to be a sharp and often witty observer of the little details of domestic life on the Michigan frontier. He expounds on cooking whitefish and blackberry rolypoly, on the farmer's "arsenal of axes," on pigs and their parts-both edible and useful, on wild and cultivated fruits, on trees, on kettles, and on Indians of the area. Lovers of Michigan's woods and fields, lakes and rivers; professional historians; and storytellers will find themselves delighted by Hedrick's account. The Land of the Crooked Tree is a Great Lakes Books reprint.

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A gripping horror tale that deftly weaves Indian lore with suspense amid a northern Michigan setting

This “meticulously plotted” novel explores “the mysteries of dysfunctional families . . . and adolescents’ imperfect . . . understanding of the world of adults” (Sarah Lyall The New York Times Book Review). “The night we left Ellen on the road, we drove up the mountain in silence.” It is the early 1980s and fifteen-year-old Libby is obsessed with The Field Guide to the Trees of North America, a gift her Irish immigrant father gave her before he died. She finds solace in “The Kingdom,” a stand of red oak and thick mountain laurel near her home in suburban Pennsylvania, where she can escape from her large and unruly family and share menthol cigarettes and lukewarm beers with her best friend. One night, while driving home, Libby’s mother, exhausted and overwhelmed with the fighting in the backseat, pulls over and orders Libby’s little sister Ellen to walk home. What none of this family knows as they drive off leaving a twelve-year-old girl on the side of the road five miles from home with darkness closing in, is what will happen next. A Crooked Tree is a surprising, indelible novel, both a poignant portrayal of an unmoored childhood giving way to adolescence, and a gripping tale about the unexpected reverberations of one rash act. “Beautifully written with tenderness and wisdom.” — Elizabeth Wetmore, New York Times bestselling author of Valentine “Suspenseful, affecting, and disarmingly evocative of childhood and the not-so-distant era of the 1980s.” —Kirkus Reviews “Filled with pathos, nostalgia, and the best kind of suspense..” — Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of Long Bright River “Completely entrancing.” —Julia Pierpont, New York Times–bestselling author of Among the Ten Thousand Things

Stories and legends of L'Arbre Croche, an Ottawa Indian mission district in Emmet County, Michigan.