Tom Johnson has led an unremarkable life. At age 27, he is quick to pursue a passion and just as likely to drop it without warning. We meet him after he has walked out of a law school exam at the University of Minnesota, abandoning any hope of a career, and still wounded by the dissolution of his marriage, a failed flirtation with the seminary and his long struggle with “life’s great restlessness.”
The familiar drive back through swirling snow to his hometown of Duluth fills him with dread — how to share the news with his parents, especially his father, who has arranged for Tom to spend the holiday break clerking at the Duluth law practice that bears the Johnson name.
What follows is a series of misadventures and Tom’s exploration of life through his association with Laura, a philosophical, rebellious and playful woman who works at the law firm. As serendipity would have it, Tom appears at a pivotal and heartbreaking time in Laura’s life, and the two puzzle through personal crisis and their complex family ties like two deer lost in a snowstorm.
The author, Paul Kilgore, was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award for his short story collection, “Losing Camille.” A Minnesotan through and through, Kilgore writes with love and authority about his state, using the Twin Cities and Duluth to establish familiarity with the often-absurd climate, and later scenes taking place at a cabin resort on fictional Dead Wolf Lake. “The Broken Key” is Kilgore’s first novel, and he proves he can go the distance. A slow cabin read if ever there were one.
