Leni comes of age in this desolate land and learns to hate her father’s explosive temper, but also her mother’s inability to leave him behind. As the story progresses through a series of vignettes, Leni begins to set down some roots and soon finds solace in the only classmate her own age, Matthew Walker.

It’s 1974 and Leni is isolated from her friends and the world at large, a horrific thing for any girl of thirteen. This altered state has him raising a fist to a wife who has succumb to his violent ways, having forgotten her feminist beliefs from earlier in the decade. It is here that things begin to unravel, as Ernt suffers from debilitating nightmares, which turn him sour and help justify an alcoholic crutch. With a few supplies to get started, Ernt leads his wife, Cora, and Leni up North to part of the world that Robert Service poetically called ‘The Great Alone’. When Ernt Allbright learns that he has been left a parcel of land up in Alaska, he announces that they’ll relocate there for a fresh start. Having spent so much time with only her mother, Leni is forced to acclimate to this new dynamic. camp in Vietnam, Lenora ‘Leni’ Allbright is not sure how things will change at home.

After her father is returned stateside from a P.O.W. Could it be that it is so isolated from all that I know or that the stories that come from this far-away land tend to contrast so much with those I am used to reading? Whatever it might be, Kristin Hannah takes the reader on quite the adventure, exploring the land as well as the psyche of the characters she peppers throughout this piece. There is something about Alaska that tends to pique my interest, though I cannot put a finger on precisely what it might be.

The great alone kristin hannah summary