Aaand the contest begins!
To recap from the February Roadhouse Report:
A fan contest is announced!
Alert readers will have noticed that I’m re-running “The History of Kate Shugak in 22 Objects” series here on stabenow.com. I’ve even managed to keep all the original comments. Some are pretty funny and all of them are fun. Scroll down to read them for yourselves. Without question I have the best fans.
This re-posting marathon is a run-up to selecting an object for No Fixed Line, the 22nd Kate Shugak novel. See below for details and prizes, all three of which include the fry bread recipe from Kate22 and the ever popular Friends of Mutt sticker.
How you win…
March 22: Scroll down to the Comments on this post and write your own, making a case for the Kate22 object of your choice. Winners will be chosen on the strength of their argument for their chosen object.
You have a week so make it good!
March 29: First, second, and third place will be awarded. The winners will be announced in a post on stabenow.com, i.e., right here. I will have the prizes* in the mail that day. Well, maybe the next. But no later!
March 31: The winners will be announced again in March’s Roadhouse Report.
All of this builds up to the publication on April 11** of–ta dah!
Yes, that would be Not the Ones Dead, the 23rd Kate Shugak novel. I know, I can’t believe it, either.
Remember:
The first 400 people*** to buy a copy of the signed hardcover edition of Not the Ones Dead from the Poisoned Pen Bookstore will also receive a recipe card featuring Kate’s Salmon Bouillabaisse, which she cooks in the book. C’mon, you gotta love that. Pre-order link here.
*Prizes include books of the Stabenow oeuvre and various Alaska-themed tchotchkes, including Eskimo yo-yos made from real sealskin that were meant to be given away during the launch of No Fixed Line back in 2020. I forgot. My fault.
**April 13 in UK/Commonwealth. Not my fault.
***The recipe cards will be included in the first 400 copies of the Poisoned Pen’s signed hardcovers only. This is my way of encouraging sales for an independent bookstore.
Chatter Kate Shugak History of Kate Shugak in 22 Objects No Fixed Line
So, the phone is important, and without it there would be a different resolution. But without the plane there would be nothing to resolve. Plus without planes Alaska would be a different country. You can’t have Mutt, sorry. Mutt is a character, not an object. Objects are inanimate. Though I do know pilots who would argue that case, but if you put a pilot up against a dog I know who would win that one. So, my vote goes for the plane.
You were spot on about objects being inanimate.
The thumb drive Kate uses to copy the files from Jane’s laptop at the Bannister Foundation. It’s small and carries potential danger along with critical information. Kate handles it in her customary way: caution mixed with reason. This is Kate in a nutshell for me. She doesn’t want to “be a mommy” to Johnny, yet she takes on the responsibility of parenting him rationally, allowing Johnny to flourish in himself. She didn’t want to be Emma’s successor and knew the dangers that position held for her personally and within the Park. By listening and watching as she fulfilled that role, Kate was able to recognize Annie as the reasonable choice to take her place as chair of the Board. It was difficult for Kate when Mutt was away, but the cautious reason Kate embodies allowed her to let Mutt do what she needed, knowing that if Mutt returned or not, the right thing will have happened.
“The wider world comes crashing in,” Kate laments to Jim as the book closes. The Park and the people within it continue to change as new people, ideas, and threats from the outside come with their own forms of potential malware, either by design, or, as in the case of the Trevioso family, by forces not of their own making. How do we each face the constant changes in our own lives with caution, while leaving ourselves open to the possibilities of all the good the new may bring with it?
Oh, and the thumb drive is small, powerful, and potentially dangerous, not unlike Kate her own self.
Congratulations, Marla, you won third prize! Check the email account you used to sign in here for an email from roadhousereport@outlook.com.
The snowmobile or ‘sled’ which is used for transportation in the winter by most Alaskans and is the impetus throughout ‘no fixed line’ including the new Herbie Topkek Polytechnic school.
Good one.
No one (yet) has mentioned The Roadhouse! The center of life in this neck of the woods…where relationships begin (or end), where things of importance get decided, where news of others in the Park get digested and distilled and generally worked to death. Dana has presented such a vivid description of the space – what it looks like, sounds like, and maybe even smells like (I’m getting old and can’t recall all of the details as I once could) that were I to visit The Park, I would know instantly that I could expect the Aunties, Jim, Bobby, or Kate and Mutt to walk in soon, if they weren’t there already. Please keep it always so.
Wait till you read “Not the Ones Dead.”
For No Fixed LIne, I would say the key person (though not an object) is Auntie Vi. She is the symbol for supporting Kate.
Not only does she save the day and save the children, she does it out of her motherly role in Kate’s life and in the community. Auntie Vi does almost everything that she does out of her love for Kate, a love never spoken yet very much present in Kate’s life.
If it needs to be an object, I would go with the cell phone for reasons already stated. It is the object so prevalent in this story compared to the first books (I’ve read all of them IN Order!) when Kate doesn’t have a cell phone and really doesn’t want one. But she finally comes to accept the importance of having one and using it!
Another vote for the cell phone! With a phone call from David to his mother, the phone drives the action throughout Kate22 by directing traffic (the signal leads the bad guys from one place to the next), as well as serving as a functional tool (camera, translator). The phone is the beginning, and the end – bringing the reader in a great big circle – as it also helps solve the mystery and reunite the children with their mother. I think the suspense level was upped as well; like waiting for a phone to ring! Finally, the cell phone symbolizes the modern world that has become everyplace in Alaska, good and bad: planes, drugs, snowmobiles, geolocation…
Congratulations, Liene, you won first prize! Check the email account you used to sign in here for an email from roadhousereport@outlook.com.
Definitely the thumb drive. Kept me on the edge of my seat. It is, as a previous comment said, “small” but oh what power it wielded. There’s definitely a case for the airplane but this seems too obvious. I still this the power of the thumb drive is the way to go.
Despite wanting a symbol for Kate to be an organic object common to her landscape or daily life, I find after much pondering I agree with the Cell Phone proposals. The idea TOTALLY fits with the title too!! Mobile phones have “No Fixed Line” and mostly only those of us in rural areas with no cell service still have “land lines” in place. Kate’s home and life and modes of communication are being modernized over time just as ours. To add to the existing good evidence in support of the cell phone as symbol because it is embedded throughout the story, I remember these things: Kate’s crime solving network of contacts is readily available in her cell phone, who she puts to good use, she took notes on her phone, and she had sent Jim a photo so at airport he could identify the mother of the children when she arrived.
First off, I’m posting this before reading any other comments, so as not to be influenced by them.
“Money’s weird,” says Jim, on p. 264, and that’s what started me thinking about money as the significant object (Can money be an object? In the sense of a thing, not a goal. Of course it can be a goal.)
Although I didn’t like “money” as much as some of the other chosen Objects, the more I looked (and I can’t tell you how many times I went through the book in the past couple of weeks), the more I realized just how crucial money is in this one.
Money drives the two crucial plot lines here: the drugs and Erland’s scheme to destroy Kate.
To start with, we are looking at “a hell of a lot of money,” to quote George (although George has no idea how much is in play here). On p. 239, Mason estimates $1.6 million profit per kilo; two kilos in the bag Jim finds and how many other bags are up there? “Two big duffel bags” worth (p. 6). How many gallon Ziplocs would fit in a duffel? Ten, say? That’s 20 kilos x $1.6 mill x 2 duffels…and we’re looking at profits well into eight figures from this one flight alone.
For the drug dealers, it’s all about the money. “We offer a consumer good for sale, at a reasonable price made possible by bulk manufacture and distribution,” says Mr. Smith (p. 305-306). If they could make the same money selling doorknobs, they would.
As for Erland, “Guys like Erland, it’s never about how much money they have. It’s about how much more money they have than anyone else.” (Kate, p. 70) The money laundering is certainly a way for him to get more money than anyone else, and setting up the foundation as the laundry and then naming Kate as trustee – well, what better way for him to make use of all that pelf than to destroy her. Give Jane credit at least for realizing Kate would never fall for it. (p. 296) But Erland was so driven by his hatred for Kate that he barreled ahead with the scheme anyway, even knowing he wouldn’t live to see the results. So, money driving this plot line also.
The clues are there. On p. 165, Kate sees that the Ahtna Women’s Shelter was given $250,000 by the foundation, and when Marlena says on p. 207, “I’ve worked a lot harder for a lot less than $25,000,” is when the penny drops for Kate.
Mason says, “If we could get a line on the money, we could blow the whole thing,” (p. 241) and Kate knows exactly how to do that. Her people finding the second set of books clinches the case.
Money, money, money, that’s what it’s about.
PS: Of course, money can be used for good also. Look at what Jim decides to do with his inheritance.
PPS: I have my suspicions about that next-door neighbor.
PPPS: On p. 297, 2nd para from the bottom, that should be “Jim had said…,” shouldn’t it.
That was very nearly a philosophical commentary, Arlene, and you sure did lay out the evidence.
So many good answers already. I think that if I were to choose one object, it would be a pair of sandals. David, Anna and their mom all show up wearing sandals. Totally inadequate for Alaska, and somehow indicative of the hardships they all experienced up to that point, and their strength in fighting through and finding community in a climate so very different than their home. I hope they show up in The Ones Not Dead. Not long till we find out!
When I heard that Book 23 was coming out, I immediately went back and read the whole series again for what must be the fourth time. Yes, am a Kate and Mutt groupie, I admit it!
It was certainly a hard task to come up with just one object for Book 22. The epigraph from Robert Frost says it all: “though there is no fixed line between wrong and right, there are roughly zones whose laws must be obeyed.” In this case, the law is that we must choose an object, which is by definition an inanimate item of matter. (The question of whether matter is inanimate, we’ll save for another day! 😊).
I’ve read other’s entries and agree that the mobile phone, the last will and testament, the drugs, and the Bannister Foundation (a corporate object) are all worthy of nomination.
However, despite the law, I would like to nominate the Grosdidier Brothers for Book 22. They have been a stalwart band of supporters throughout the series, dropping everything in a second to come to the rescue of the injured or ill. Matt Grosdider, in particular, was the hero in this book. This was also the first book when we learned a little more about the psyche of the band of brothers. I am so pleased that Matt and Laurel have got engaged!
However, if we need to 100% stick to inanimate objects, then I nominate Matt’s parka jacket (and all the essential snow-wear that keeps Kate and all the characters warm). If Matt had not wrapped up David and Anna in his own parka (and thereby risk freezing himself) David and Anna would not have survived the first chapter, the book would have been a short and sad story, and David and Anne and Mami would never have gone on to become residents of Niniltna.
Thank you Dana and the judges for considering my nomination.
Mary
When I heard that Book 23 was coming out, I immediately went back and read the whole series again for what must be the fourth time. Yes, am a Kate and Mutt groupie, I admit it!
It was certainly a hard task to come up with just one object for Book 22. The epigraph from Robert Frost says it all: “though there is no fixed line between wrong and right, there are roughly zones whose laws must be obeyed.” In this case, the law is that we must choose an object, which is by definition an inanimate item of matter. (The question of whether matter is inanimate, we’ll save for another day! 😊).
Yes, the mobile phone, the last will and testament, the drugs, the Bannister Foundation (a corporate, inanimate object) are all up there.
Despite the law, I would like to nominate the Grosdidier Brothers for Book 22. They have been a stalwart band of supporters throughout the series, dropping everything in a second to come to the rescue of the injured or ill. Matt Grosdider, in particular, was the hero in this book. This was also the first book when we learned a little more about the psyche of the band of brothers. I am so pleased that Matt and Laurel have got engaged!
However, if we need to 100% stick to inanimate objects, then I nominate Matt’s parka jacket – and all the essential snow-wear that keeps Kate and all the characters warm. If Matt had not wrapped up David and Anna in his own parka (and thereby risk himself freezing) David and Anna would not have survived the first chapter, the book would have been a short and sad story, and David and Anne and Mami would never have gone on to become residents of Niniltna.
Thank you Dana and the judges for considering my nomination.
Mary D