Using “literary” in its broadest meaning I have had several favorites. They always seem to be the Wonder woman types. Women who can solve problems single-handedly, certainly take care of themselves, handle themselves heroically in crisis situations, and always come out on top. Yet they have human frailties as well--just so we know they are not actually other-worldly. In my youth Nancy Drew was one. Today my hero of choice is Anna Pigeon, Park Ranger. Anna has all the traits I admire: she is a nature lover, a steward of the natural environment, strong, independent, smart, able to figure things out, courageous, but always struggling with her human vulnerabilities.
Nevada Barr, Anna’s creator, is a very successful writer. She has won many awards for her books of the last three decades. She became interested in the environment and started working summers for the National Park Service as a Park Ranger. And so is her character Anna Pigeon a National Park Service ranger, working in law enforcement. The Anna pigeon series of 18 books begins in Guadalupe National Park and takes the reader into as many national parks from desert to the Great Lakes.
Anna’s exploits are always based on some environmental issue. Her stories often have an unexpected twist, but Anna always gets the bad guy, often showing up the local law enforcement officials a la Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote. Ms. Barr aways offers lots of suspense and excitement and a good look at the parks in which her stories take place.
Nevada Barr’s first novel published in 1984 was interestingly about two lesbians. It appears Ms. Barr is not a lesbian and probably learned early on that marketing to a lesbian readership would be severely limiting. But curious that she started out in this vein. I recently borrowed the book, Bittersweet, from the library as I have not ever read it.
Anna pigeon was created in 1993 in Track of the Cat which takes place in Guadalupe National Park. In the ensuing years her adventures take us to such exotic places as Yosemite, Rocky Mountain Park, The Natchez Trace, The Carlsbad Caverns of NM, The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island National Monument, Isle Royal in Lake Superior NP, Glacier NP to name a few of her favorite places. Her favorite places and mine. Perhaps that has something to do with my enjoyment of the books.
But it’s not just the settings of the stories. One gets to know and love certain people in Anna’s life quite well after reading just a few of these books. Anna’s dead actor husband who was killed in an accident crops up in Anna’s thoughts rather regularly. She struggles with the grief of losing him for many years and finds herself struggling with the temptation to drink too much alcohol for the rest of her life. Her sister Molly, a New York psychiatrist is a constant mentor and colorful personality as are the many associates in the park service with whom she works.
Gill and I were particularly thrilled when we saw in Hard Truth which takes place in RMNP that Barr had chosen for her main character a friend of ours, Toby, who is sadly no longer living. When Nevada Barr was in Estes Park researching her next book she met Toby, a woman severely disabled by rheumatoid arthritis and wheel-chair bound. The author was so impressed with our dynamic friend she based the main character of her new book on this woman.
Ms. Barr, who herself worked for the park service before she started writing books, paints for the reader a picture of the politics, the heroes and the villains, the secrets and favors, the drudgery and the incredible stress that goes on from day to day in a job in that agency of the government.
In the following two decades Anna serves in about 16 other National Parks. By 2009 Anna, now married but still a Park Ranger, is aging along with her new husband. In Barr’s 15th book our heroine is on leave and the couple is in Big Bend National Park. Although she is older Anna still has the qualities I admired in her in the beginning. I’m glad that she too is aging, along with me. There is something unreal about a character who does not age with time. Such a character is private investigator Kinsey Milhone, the creation of Sue Grafton in the alphabet mysteries starting with A is for Alibi, etc. I believe Grafton is now up to V or so. A very ambitious pursuit --a mystery novel for every letter of the alphabet. I enjoy those books very much too. But Nevada Barr’s Ranger Pigeon is my favorite.
Gill and I have visited most of the Parks in which Anna Pigeon appears. Many times in anticipation of a visit we borrow the audiobook from the library and start out on the road listening to the book which features the park we are about to visit. Perhaps this is one reason I enjoy these books so much. We can get a preview of the park while being entertained with a great story. Then while enjoying the park we can let our imaginations soar because we now know all that goes on behind the scenes underneath the natural beauty of the park features, now we know the sometimes ugly reality of the lives led by the park employees and visitors.
I am not a qualified judge, but I do not consider Nevada Barr’s books to be of superior or lasting artistic merit. If I were a student of literature, I am quite sure I would pick for my favorite a more classic, universal character, but I presently am not a student of literature. There are many more books out there that I have not read than books I have read, so who knows how many other characters might exist whom I have never met. I like to read books that are relaxing to read and fun to read. Books that feature characters whom I admire. Among those whom I have met Anna Pigeon is that character.
© 10 March 2014
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