A Novel 61

 

When I started this column, little did I know that David Housewright had written a 2011 novel entitled Highway 61. Housewright is a Minnesota author of crime novels. His chief character is Rushmore McKenzie, a retired cop– now rich–with time on his hands and an inability to say “no” to some who ask his help.

Highway 61 begins with a crime in Thunder Bay and bounces from the North Shore to several Twin Cities venues. McKenzie is dragged into helping the daughter of his girlfriend whose father was in Thunder Bay when the crime occurred. It gets complex from there, while casually mentioning the Bayfront Blues Festival, the Pigeon River Border Crossing, the Angry Trout and World’s Best Donuts.

Here are a few passages from the novel of interest to North Shore residents and frequent visitors:

“The view improved greatly once I-35 intersected Twenty-Sixth Avenue East in Duluth. That’s where it became Highway 61 again and veered northeast. Suddenly there was plenty to see, mostly the rugged northern shoreline of Lake Superior, but also a stunning succession of lush forests, waterfalls, lighthouses (2), resorts, and small curious towns.”

Minnesota author David Housewright has penned books using the North Shore as a backdrop for his mystery novels. Photo submitted by Stephen Aldrich

“Resorts that did not offer cross-country or downhill skiing were shuttered for the season, and the crowded tourist towns had become virtually empty of traffic. Certainly, that was true of Grand Marais, a port city that could trace its history back four hundred years.”

“Technically, the City of Thunder Bay did not exist when Highway 61 was built in the early twenties. It was cobbled together in 1970 with the merger of the communities of Fort William, Port Arthur, Neebing, and McIntyre, and it showed.” (I did not know about the last two parts of Thunder Bay until reading this passage.)

“The steel-tinted water, the wind-whipped waves, and the snow-dusted Sleeping Giant in the distance would have made me shiver even if I hadn’t been so cold.”

“My favorite was a street sign that proclaimed the intersection of Three Chords and the Truth.”

Housewright is Past President of the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA). He also has received an Edgar Award and three Minnesota Book Awards. His other repeat protagonist is one Holland Taylor who starred in his first novel, Penance;” it won the Edgar. Taylor was the lead figure in the next four Housewright novels. Other winners of the Minnesota Book Award are Practice to Deceive (1998), Jelly’s Gold (2009), and Curse of the Jade Lady (2013. Housewright’s name and face were added to the Minnesota Writers on the Map by the Minnesota Historical Society and the St. Paul Public Library. There he joins the eminent company of Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Maud Hart Lovelace, Laura Ingalls Wilder, August Wilson, Louise Erdrich, William Kent Krueger, and Charles M. Schulz.

His pre-writing career included advertising as well as journalism for papers in Owatonna, Minneapolis, Albert Lea and Grand Forks. He taught a course on the Modern American Mystery Novel at the University of Minnesota and often instructs at the Loft Literary Center.

Raised in St. Paul, he served as editor of the Cretin High School paper until he was fired for publishing an opposition to the Vietnam War. His college was a journalism degree from the University of St. Thomas. Together he and his wife, Renee Valois, wrote The Devil and the Diva, a 2013 Minnesota Book Award Nominee. (Close readers of this column with unimpaired short-term memory will note that they lost the Award that year to Curse of the Jade Lady.) He awaits the judges’ decision on the 2021 Minnesota Book Award for From the Grave.

One of his novels, Dead Man’s Mistress, takes place almost entirely in Grand Marais. Perhaps Housewright will be invited to the Art Colony’s Readers’ and Writers’ Festival some year.

Steve Aldrich is a retired Hennepin County lawyer, mediator, and Judge, serving from 1997-2010. He and his wife moved here in 2016. He likes to remember that he was a Minnesota Super Lawyer before being elected to the bench. Now he is among the most vulnerable to viruses but fully vaccinated. Steve really enjoys doing weddings, the one thing a retired judge can do without appointment by the Chief Justice. He officiated at a well-masked wedding this year where the “congregation” was in Grand Marais, Norway, and White Bear Lake. Copyright Stephen C. Aldrich and News-Herald, 2021.