The Promise of Unbroken Straw

by Ken Steele

Rating: *****

The Promise of Unbroken Straw unfolds the rags-to-riches story of the Landrum family through the eyes of the younger son, Paul, using dual timelines, one set in the mid-1940s and the other in the mid-1980s.

Motherless, living with his father, Jake, grandfather, Eli, and brother, Tim, Paul navigates an awkward adolescence marred by secrets, guilt, and Jake’s cold aloofness while the family scratches a living in the wheat fields of Oklahoma during WWII.

But when a startling discovery is made on their farm, the Landrums are swept into an unfamiliar world of wealth and privilege…

Steele has written a riveting debut blending an absorbing coming-of-age story with a gripping generational saga. Although the majority of the book is set in the 1940s, Steele opens his tale with a middle-aged Paul in 1986.

It’s a gently amusing, intriguing beginning, yet within a few paragraphs, there are hints of regret and bitter disaffection despite Paul appearing to have a comfortable, successful life.  Steele gives the reader quite a lot to unpack in this first chapter, but it’s focused, and Paul is an immediately likable individual and investable main protagonist.

Steele then transports the reader to the 1940s for several chapters. His writing is alive with authentic quirks and period nuances as Paul endures agonizing school days and arduous chores on the farm. The bond between Paul and best friend, Teddy, is well-depicted, although foreboding hangs heavy over Teddy, not only due to his violent alcoholic father.

Steele is adept at conjuring Paul’s internal adolescent voice, full of questioning, wondering, and nascent emotional development. It’s engrossing, especially as Paul innocently shares observations that are freighted with foreshadowing for the reader.

All of which are set against the Landrums' life of grinding rural poverty in the wondrously evoked, dusty, sepia-toned heat of Wyatt County, Oklahoma. However, it’s the puzzling dynamic between the Landrums that initially hooks the reader's attention. Although Ann, Jake’s wife and mother to Paul and Tim, has died, her presence is keenly felt, while mention of her death is avoided.

Jake is a closed, emotionally redundant father who is mired in grief, but the reader suspects something more troubling behind his horribly strange and strict behavior. His relationship with Paul is toxic and weighed down by the unspoken. Eli, who himself has a few buried secrets, attempts to shield Paul from the worst of Jake’s moods but curiously never openly remonstrates with him.

Talented football player, Tim, is slightly enigmatic but the easiest-going of the Landrums, despite also hiding a couple of things to himself. At times, the entire family seems trapped in a crucible of love, rage, and poverty. Steele skillfully furnishes the narrative with subtle clues that afford fascinating blink-and-you-miss-them glimpses as to why this odd, dysfunctional atmosphere permeates the farmstead.

Nonetheless, as Steele takes the reader forward to the 1980s in Chapter 7, he begins to drop a series of narrative bombs. As the reader reaches halfway, The Promise of Unbroken Straw not only makes its title poignantly clear, but things begin to shift dramatically for the Landrums.

Notwithstanding their good fortune, tensions swell and unease flickers. The Landrums’ arrival in Tulsa high society sits uncomfortably, for different reasons, with each of them. Steele peppers this part of the story with various competing narrative strands, none of which, the reader senses, will end particularly well.

There are several seismic half-reveals and twists throughout The Promise of Broken Straw, the most incendiary of these comes just before three-quarters concerning Teddy’s father. The ambiguous inference made is never confirmed, and Paul does not appear to register what Eli is possibly suggesting, but it gives the reader pause for thought.

Indeed, Steele leaves quite a lot to the reader’s imagination, which works well because the framework for what occurs in the decades not covered by the novel is signposted, yet remains nicely intriguing. However, the denouement between Jake and Paul is a trifle unsatisfying, and a touch more context with Amy, Paul’s girlfriend, would have been beneficial.

The Promise of Broken Straw is spellbindingly good and proves difficult to put down. Highly recommended.

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