Authors

Here’s an excerpt from Augie’s Secrets: The Minneapolis Mob and the King of the Hennepin Strip by Neal Karlen. Meet Neal this Thursday at 7 pm at Mill City Museum to hear more of Augie’s secrets. Click on the book title, above, for more information and events.

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There were two words too powerful, too terrible, too ugly for my grandmother to pronounce fully aloud. She approached the first one in a normal timbre, then at the last second dropped her tone to sotto voce and whispered, in the heavy accent of her native Odessa, “kan-suh.”

The effect was mighty and dramatic. She would be sitting at the dining room table, with her almost-perfect son, my father, hiding behind the newspaper box scores and wax fruit, and she would say loudly, to no one in particular, in a full Merman-esque voice, “Mr. Anderson, I heard he has a throat full of”—then she’d whisper—”kan-suh.”

She said the offending word barely audibly, like she wanted no one in the room to hear it but my father, as if she expected him personally to cure malignancy forever: kan-suh.

The second ghastly word was what she deemed the vocation of her misbegotten younger brother, Augie, who to my father’s mind was the only interesting person in the entire family. She would say, as a prelude to damning her damnable brother, that “Augie is a no-goodnik” or “My brother is a scandal to the family!” which he sort of was, to a few, because of that place he ran, Augie’s Theatre Lounge, or maybe that speakeasy for drunken shikkers he had earlier, the White Swan.

She would conclude her sermon of fire and damnation, just saying his name, “Augie”—then dropping her voice an octave and—shhh!—say it: “geng-steh.”

“Geng-steh,” she’d whisper again, saying the word twice in overstated understatement, evoking images of gangland slayers like John Dillinger, Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, Ma Barker and her boys, and Pretty Boy Floyd, whose name she’d translate from the newspaper, her English primer, as “Handsome Fegel”—and the later ones, Davie “the Jew” Berman and Isadore “Kid Cann” Blumenfeld. Amazingly, my father became aware over time, Augie knew all of them and liked almost all of them—and they all knew and liked Augie.

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It may be snowing in Minnesota, but bugs will be crawling out soon. Today we chat with Bruce “the Bug Guy” Giebink and photographer Bill Johnson, collaborators on Minnesota Bug Hunt, a new children’s book about insects big and small, fierce and friendly.

Find out why they are both fascinated by the Mantisfly.

How did you become interested in bugs?

Bruce:

Although I’ve had naturalist tendencies since I was a kid, I wasn’t especially fascinated with insects as a group until I took an introductory entomology course in college. I had no idea of the incredible diversity that exists in the insects. They come in a nearly endless variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, and more species continue to be discovered on a daily basis.  Many truly do look like mini alien creatures! Once I began to study them more closely, I started to appreciate their amazing ability to survive and adapt to their environment.  As a group, they interact with each other and the environment in some truly amazing ways. One area I find particularly fascinating is how insects interact with each other and plants on a chemical  level. Although many insects live in a visual world, even more exist within an amazing world of smells.

Bill:

One of my earliest memories is from around age three or four and I was looking at some hollyhock flowers and saw something fly into one. Being very curious, I walked up to the flower and for some reason stuck my finger in it. Well, the flower bit back. That was a big surprise for me! After a few seconds, I realized that it wasn’t the flower that bit me, but some large insect that quickly flew out of the flower. Later I determined that it was a large bumblebee that had stung me, only because I had just poked it. Because of that, I made it a point to find out what did that and why it did that.  To this day, happily, that investigation continues.

If you were a bug, what bug would you be?

Bruce:

I’d want to be a praying mantis. Mantids are very active and alert predators with excellent vision. They have a very good idea of what’s going on around them. Within the bug world, they are a top predator, so there aren’t many other bugs you’d have to worry about eating you–except perhaps a larger, hungrier mantis! Most can fly, so you’d be able to fly around, just for the sheer joy of flying or to escape danger or to check out different habitats. For an insect, they also live a fairly long time (2.5–4.5 months).

How do you get such detailed images?

Bill:

With the right equipment, patience, and practice, it’s really not that hard to do. The best lenses to use are referred to as “macro lenses,” specifically made for close-up photography. When working at such a small scale and subject matter, depth of field is almost nonexistent, so the addition of a flash or multiple flash units is required to achieve sharp detail.

What is your favorite cool fact in the book?

Bruce:

The crazy life cycle of the Mantisfly. By appearance alone, the Mantisfly definitely qualifies as a bizarre bug! It’s got grabbing front legs (like a praying mantis), a really long neck (about the only other bug I know with a long neck is the Giraffe Beetle, another bizarre bug!), and beautifully patterned wings (like a lacewing). The life cycle of the Mantisfly is so unusual and detailed that I had a very difficult time keeping the description as short as it is. I wanted to say a LOT more! The world of bugs is truly full of weird and wacky characters. The more you look, the more you find. If I had been a part of creating the movie A Bug’s Life you would have seen some REALLY WEIRD and CRAZY bugs, some behaving in a truly WEIRD manner!

Bill:

I like the Mantisfly life cycle story. In the insect world, it’s eat or be eaten, and you do what you can to be successful in one and try to avoid the other. To do that sometimes requires being really sneaky or devious as well as being able to show off bright colors, startling patterns, and weird body shapes.

What do you hope readers will get out of this book?

Bruce:

When readers (or even those just looking at the pictures) pick up this book, I hope they’ll appreciate the incredibly detailed pictures and want to know more about what they’re looking at. When they read about a particular insect, I hope they’ll say, “Cool!  I didn’t know they did that!”

After seeing all the different sizes, shapes, and colors of the insects in this small book, I hope they’ll appreciate the incredible variety or diversity that exists in the world of insects, even in a temperate location like Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. I hope this tiny glimpse into the hidden and mysterious world of insects will pique their interest enough to want to explore their own backyards, woods, and ponds to find their own bugs. Once they find them, I hope they’ll want to learn more about them, such as what they are, what they eat, how they protect themselves, etc.

More than anything, I hope they develop an appreciation for all the many important jobs that insects do and begin to realize how important they are to the natural world. In many respects they truly are “the little things that run the (natural) world.”

Meet Bruce, Bill, and some bugs tomorrow at Red Balloon in St. Paul at 10:30 a.m. Click on the hyperlink for the title, above, for more events with the authors.

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War can strain the bonds of love. No one understood that better than Minnesotans Madison and Lizzie Bowler. During the American Civil War, Madison and Lizzie courted, married, became parents, and bought a farm. They attended dances, talked politics, and confided their deepest fears. Because of the war, however, they experienced all of these events separately, sharing them through hundreds of letters. Discover how Madison and Lizzie maintained their steadfast commitment to one another, even as they struggled to balance extraordinary duty and distance with ordinary life and love in time of war.

Written by Minnesota playwright Victoria Stewart, this original play is based on the Bowlers’ letters, held in the Minnesota Historical Society’s collection and published in the 2008 MHS Press book Go If You Think It Your Duty by Andrea R. Foroughi. It  is directed by Ivey Award-winner Craig Johnson, with popular and award-winning local actors Peter Hansen, Anna Sundberg, Dietrich Poppen, and Abby DeSanto. The play features live performances of Civil War-era music with original musical direction by James Lekatz.

There are two show times: Saturday, April 6, at 2 p.m. or Tuesday, April 9, at 7 p.m. Cost is $15 or $11 for MHS members. Advance purchase is required and can be made by calling 651-259-3015 or online.

This program is made possible with support from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, voted into law by the people of Minnesota in 2008.

More information on upcoming Civil War-related events and programs.

Minnesota and the Civil War Exhibit

Tweeting the Civil War

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In 1978 seven Norman Rockwell paintings and a supposed Renoir, later discovered to be a forgery, were stolen from Elayne Galleries in St. Louis Park. It is still the biggest theft in Minnesota history, and no one was ever convicted of the crime. Veteran crime writer Bruce Rubenstein, author of the new book The Rockwell Heist, details the story of the theft, the investigation, and the twenty-year quest to return the art to its rightful owners. Mr. Rubenstein recently answered some questions about his new book.

Why do you write crime stories, Mr. Rubenstein?

Because I always have something to write about. At least that was my standard answer when I was a freelancer selling articles to weeklies and monthlies. There is more to it than that, of course. People who write about business, or politics, or any number of other things always have something to write about too. But with crime your story has a dramatic hinge. And people are fascinated by crime.

Why were you drawn to the story of The Rockwell Heist?

It had everything a writer could ask for–feisty, sympathetic victims, bold villains who were part of a colorful local underworld, a sexy female con artist and her quasi-sympathetic dupe, a quest to recover the stolen paintings that went on for decades with one twist after another, hundreds of pages of files and many knowledgeable people to interview. And nobody got killed. I’ve been writing about crime for a long time, and I’m pretty tired of murders. This art theft and the many attempts to trade the loot for cash or something else of value seemed good-natured compared to the kind of crimes I’ve written about in the past.

Did you manage to solve the crime?

I found out who did it. So had the investigators. Like many crimes, it went into the books unsolved, even though the perpetrators, locally based professional criminals, were identified. There simply was not enough evidence to indict them. Their names were blacked out of the files, but I got in touch with one of the FBI’s informants and he told me who they were.

Why? Did he want credit? Notoriety?

No, in fact he went to great lengths to remain anonymous. It’s a phenomenon I’ve encountered many times. There are people who like to talk. There’s nothing in it for them. Just the opposite. In many cases they are risking their lives.

You say that the value of the paintings that were stolen has mushroomed to more than $1 million by now. How much did the thieves realize?

Not much. The value of Norman Rockwell’s work waxed and waned during the time they retained possession of the art, but it didn’t really take off until long after they’d turned it over for a pretty minimal price to the mobsters who’d hired them to steal it.

So the theft was a failure, even though they got away with it?

Not at all. It accomplished exactly what the real authors of the act, Miami-based mobsters, wanted it to accomplish.

What was that?

I’m afraid you’ll have to buy the book to find out. I’ll tell you this much: the Rockwell paintings were peripheral to their real objective.

Well, if the mobsters didn’t really want the Rockwell paintings, what did they do once they got them?

They offered them for sale through a stolen art network in Europe. The evidence suggests that the paintings were  bought and sold several times there, and maybe again in Argentina, before someone who was attempting to enter Brazil surrendered them to the Federal Police in Rio de Janeiro, probably in return for expedited processing of an application for Brazilian citizenship. Brazil doesn’t extradite its citizens to face charges in other countries, and wanted criminals often seek refuge there.

How much are the paintings worth now?

Rockwell’s work has undergone a critical re-evaluation in the last decade or so, and several of his paintings have sold for more than $1 million. The collective value of the Rockwells that were stolen from Elayne Galleries is conservatively $4 million.

Bruce Rubenstein will talk about his book and sign copies next Thursday, March 28, at 7 pm at Common Good Books, and Thursday, April 4, at 7 pm at Once Upon a Crime. Please click the hyperlink to the title, above, for details.

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Ka Vang is a poet, spoken word artist, playwright, and community activist. We are pleased to release her provocative essay The Good Hmong Girl Eats Raw Laab, available as an e-book short for just 99 cents. The e-short is one of our new MHS Express titles.

The piece examines the social and cultural implications of “a good Hmong girl” by addressing these issues: “What does it mean to be a good Hmong girl? Who defines the good Hmong girl? Who practices it and enforces the rules? What are the rewards and consequences for the Hmong girl and her family if she is not a good Hmong girl? Would Hmong culture be diminished if there were no more good Hmong girls left?”

Ka has been busy! She was recently featured on MNOriginal, Twin Cities Public Television’s award-winning weekly arts series celebrating Minnesota’s creative community, and her new book, Shoua and the Northern Lights Dragon, produced with the Minnesota Humanities Council and the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, is now available.

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Explore the dark side of Minnesota history with three veteran writers who have unearthed incredible stories of murder and mayhem. The event is Wednesday evening at Dayton Avenue Presbyterian Church in St. Paul.

It’s a Crime: An Evening of Minnesota Crime Hosted By Stan Turner

Larry Millett, William Swanson, and Joe Kimball discuss their books about infamous crimes in Minnesota.

Wednesday February 27 at 7:00 p.m.
Dayton Avenue Presbyterian Church
217 Mackubin Street, St. Paul, MN
Hosted by SubText: A Bookstore

Larry Millett is the author of Murder Has a Public Face and Strange Days, Dangerous Nights, among other titles.

William Swanson is the author of Black White Blue and Dial M.

Joe Kimball is the author of many books, including Secrets of the Congdon Mansion.

Can’t get enough local true crime? Check out our forthcoming books The Rockwell Heist by Bruce Rubenstein and Augie’s Secrets by Neal Karlen for more on Minnesota’s seamy underside!

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We are pleased to announce that Mark Anthony Rolo’s My Mother Is Now Earth is a finalist for both a Minnesota Book Award and a Northeastern Minnesota Book Award.

The book depicts the story of the last three years of his mother’s life from the perspective of his child self. With an innocent and sometimes brutal child’s view, Rolo recounts stories of a woman who battles poverty, depression, her abusive husband, and isolation through the long northern Minnesota winters, and of himself, her son, who struggles at school, wrestles with his Ojibwe identity, and copes with violence. But he also shows, with eloquence and compassion, his adult understanding of his mother’s fight to live with dignity, not despair.

Rolo will be speaking tonight at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minnesota, as part of the Visiting Writers Series at SWSU. The event is at 7:00 p.m. in Charter Hall 201 and is free and open to the public.

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Tickets are still available for the afternoon History Forum program this Saturday January 19th with David Nichols, author of Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Policy and Politics.

He will also speak in Mankato Tuesday January 22nd at Minnesota State University

In early 1862 a federal investigator cautioned President Lincoln that mass corruption within Minnesota’s system of Indian Agencies would lead to disaster if left unchecked. The president, consumed by the battle to preserve the Union, ignored the warning. When the U.S.-Dakota War broke out eight months later, Lincoln told Minnesota’s governor Alexander Ramsey, “Attend to the Indians… Necessity has no law.” The war and its aftermath—U.S. victory, Dakota internment, the largest mass hanging in American history, and the forced removal of the Dakota from their homelands—solidified Minnesota’s place in the Union, even as it set the stage for the Indian Wars to come, and tragically altered the lives of thousands of Dakota people for generations to come.

David Nichols is the former academic dean at Southwestern College in Winfield, his alma mater. A native of Kansas, he has a Ph.D. in history from the College of William and Mary.  His dissertation, Lincoln and the Indians:  Civil War Policy and Politics, was published by the University of Missouri Press in 1978.  That book, still the definitive study of Lincoln’s Indian policies during the Civil War, was reissued as a paperback by the University of Illinois Press in 2000 and was published in a third edition by the Minnesota Historical Society Press in June 2012.  Dr. Nichols has spoken across the nation at venues including the Clinton Presidential Library,  the Eisenhower Library, Atlanta History Center, John F. Kennedy Library, the Air Force Academy and the National Archives.

To learn more about the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862, please visit www.usdakotawar.org

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[Update--One Frozen Lake received a starred review in Publishers Weekly!]

Today’s post is by Deborah Jo Larson, author of the new children’s book One Frozen Lake, with paintings by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher.

“I grew up in an ice-fishing family. Just about every Saturday in the winter, my dad would load up this light blue Chevy with an ice shack (which he built himself), jig sticks, tackle, bait, propane heater, thermos of hot cocoa, and most importantly, a wide assortment of candy and snacks. Since ice shacks are tiny, my sisters and I took turns going with him. I felt lucky when it was my turn. I vividly remember what it felt like to be inside the shadowy and surprisingly warm ice shack. I remember card games, peering into the mysterious ice holes, playing with the minnows, and eating a LOT of Snickers bars. What I don’t remember is catching fish. . . .

“When my son was eight years old, my dad took him ice fishing for the first time. He returned home pink-cheeked and jabbering about how much fun he had with Grandpa. The fact that they did not catch one fish clearly did not matter.  My son could not wait to venture out again.

“I knew then I wanted to write a picture book about the unique, quirky sport of ice fishing and, specifically, how waiting for the fish to bite in a minuscule shack brings generations together and creates lasting memories.”

We’re glad she did!

Please click on the book title link, above, for upcoming signings with Deb.

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Today’s post is by freelance writer and author Chris Niskanen on his new book, The Minnesota Book of Skills: Your Guide to Smoking Whitefish, Sauna Etiquette, Tick Extraction, and More.

*****

When I was in junior high school, I took an aptitude test that showed I had a strong skill set and desire for welding and writing. Ever since, I’ve been fascinated by people with unique skills, and my career as an outdoor writer allowed me to write about them and learn from them.

A few years ago, I met a family who spent a year preparing for their Thanksgiving meal — every dish had to be grown, harvested, or foraged by a family member; nothing could be store-bought. What fascinated me was the journey the family took in order to have that unique experience of a Thanksgiving meal prepared truly from scratch. They not only experienced the joy of creating or harvesting food for each other, but they got to share those stories around the dinner table. Minnesota settlers and immigrants needed skills in order to survive; today, we’re seeking out those same skills not because we need them but because we see value in them — activities such as raising our own gardens and chickens, canning our own food, and making our own beer, for example.

The irony is our modern life affords us the luxury and time to learn skills that were life-giving and necessary for our ancestors. My grandmother probably hated canning green beans, but I look forward to a summer weekend doing it now, even though I can afford to go buy fresh green beans virtually year-round. Why is that?

*****

Find out how to can those green beans — and read stories of people who are as interesting as the skills they possess — in The Minnesota Book of Skills.

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