Harriette Simpson Arnow’s first fan letter forThe Weed killer’s Daughterwas from a paleobotanist who wrote in January of 1970 to congratulate her on capturing in a novel the major tensions of the time: “brainwashed vs. free, conformist vs. thinker, domineer of nature vs. lovers & preservers of nature, technocrats and humanists.”¹ Arnow saved the letter and appreciated the response from a biology professor who had identified concerns that had long been on her mind and in her work, particularly in this novel.

The “weedkiller” of the title is Herman Schnitzer, a conservative manufacturer of plastics useful to the...

“Stand right here,” they had said. “It’s the safest spot. The place looks deserted, but there’s a cook in the kitchen. The back door is open; if someone tries to bother you, scream and run in.”

And so she stood among the garbage cans in the shadows behind the drive-in and watched the couple she called Uncle Jeff and Aunt Margaret as they rushed on tiptoe back to their car; soundless as thieves they were trying to be. She could still feel their kisses on each cheek, and hear their whispered good-byes along with all those silly warnings.

Would she...

She locked her bedroom door, and stood, face pressed against it, blushing as she thought of the kiss. Why? Why? She turned and tossed back her hair. Why ruin this wonderful evening in trying to find the why of why? She had something nice to remember forever. Not even her own silliness, nor Robert’s crossness on the way home, nor the snooping of her parents had spoiled it. Nobody had learned anything. Her mother hadn’t found that letter hidden in her closet, demanding she have another conference with that kooky would-be psychologist. No, she wouldn’t start worrying over that—now....

The inner time clock that lived without electricity and never needed a windup brought her wide awake. A dim blob of gray marked the overdressed window. This meant it was around seven o’clock of a late September morning, that time of year in lower Michigan when the nights grow long and longer as the sun runs down the sky to winter.

Bed straightened, blankets put away, she hurried to the bathroom carrying her old blue jeans and sneakers for swamping. She showered, unworried by the gurgles, coughs, and screams of the piping. Her father, in the storm he was in...

Susie, frightened that Iggy was watching some human who had overheard, looked to see a swath of grass and willow bough, bent above the water, rise to become a camouflaged, wide-brimmed straw hat. Under the hat was a tall boy in work clothes, not faked but real; faded old blue shirt stuffed into worn blue jeans that disappeared in waders beginning at mid-thigh. Her heart thumped up into her throat. He made her think of the real men who fished or gathered sea weed along the Nova Scotian coast.

The boy, she saw with relief, was showing no interest in...

She found all parts of Ter worse—except his tongue. He quarreled because she had been gone so long, and shook his head to the flowers with a whiny: “You know I can’t smell a thing, not even the vervain and other mints you brought.”

His seeming self-pity so annoyed her, she thought of telling him she had seen what she thought was the FBI, but decided against it. He might sneer and want to know how she knew the FBI. She wouldn’t be able to tell him, not exactly; it was something of the same learning that guided her...

Safe, with Lulu out of sight, Susie gathered up all the sickroom supplies brought for her she could carry, and with the medicine hurried up to Ter.

He was so thoroughly nasty, she decided he was better. First, he wanted to know why she was going around “undressed in a bathrobe”; then without waiting for her explanation, asked if she had managed the medicine. She gave him the bottle so that he might read the directions: before she could stop him he had swallowed three pills.

She told him with some heat he was only supposed to take two, two...

“The great blue heron so still among the reeds is a promise that life will remain in the man-wounded pond.” It was no good; yet better than nothing for a first sentence. “Get up and get to work before Ter starts wanting things; first, though, you had better go listen on the ladder, just in case.”

Pulling a bathrobe on, she rushed through her back bedroom door, and was on the bottom step in front of the closet when Ter said: “Oh, Susie, how embarrassing.”

His voice came from her study door. She would not look, but scuttled into the...

She made slow figure-eights on the cement behind the garage. Killing time she was; no, time was killing her; bike as slowly as possible, use one hand on the curves; none on the straights; and remember to keep the left sweater sleeve pushed up. No one must see you glance at your watch.

Six minutes more. Would he or could he come at exactly seven? Time to go once more around, slowly, slowly; a sick girl getting a bit of exercise; be languid as you go down the exit drive and into the road. Passersby might see from moving cars....

She liked this time of day before Old Harp came. Homeroom, fake togetherness, and Mr. Twitty’s English class were behind her. Now, head bent low by her violin, she plucked softly string by string, but listened instead to the muted vibrations crossing and recrossing around her: the clear notes of a French horn, the low growl of the Negro’s bass drum, the perfect and beautiful tones of the new girl’s violin—the one, she thought, whose mother counted Negroes—or Lady Macbeth-with-her-spots-all-washed-away. She sat only one chair removed from the concert master. Then from the last chair in the second...

Thursday Latin finished, she made for the door. The third full week of school almost gone; that was something; the week of her “illness” when she could not bike, almost gone; that was something, too. Yet, this meant four days come twilight since Ter had gone; no word from him; and no mention, that she could find, in either the Detroit or suburban papers, of the return of the money.

Where was Ter—Chicago or Canada? sick or well? He could let her know. Ter was only part of “this gritty time” when the wind blew sand between your teeth;...

The marina appeared to be pure white. Still, nobody seemed to notice Ben’s color. Overcrowded, the place was a mess, with people hunting dock carts, rounding up children, scrubbing boats, rummaging in gear boxes, loading, and unloading, with a good many staring at the sky, mostly clear except low in the southwest where rounded hills of dark cloud showed themselves. Susie, too, looked at the sky now and then as she with the others worked her way along a cluttered dock where the few empty slips showed floating beer cans and fish, also floating; they were dead.

They had reached...

It didn’t make sense; you’d think the Queen of England was coming to dine, instead of an employee for Sunday “potluck” that had thrown everything and body into high gear. The Popsicle Queen’s directives, questions, and suggestions blew down in a perfect gale over the intercom: Susie was to select the “prettiest parsley”; slice the lemon thin; and to remind Lulu she was to use the recipe in the “pinkish cookbook” for the Yorkshire pudding.

Lulu, without too much strain, could manage any kind of company dinner alone, but for this one Susie had been sent to help as soon...

Katy was already in the car when Pryor came for Susie. Smiling, acting natural, wasn’t easy—unless you thought of Mary Lou. Her job of telling would have been a hard one. You wondered if she’d told Katy at school or gone to the home and told the parents. Wonder was as far as you could go. You couldn’t ask questions.

Katy’s happiness made her feel worse. The girl so seldom had time or money for any kind of fun; the trip into Detroit was, like that boat ride, something of a blast for her. She talked more than usual:...

The “No” never came. TheAntinamehad grown to be a part of her life, a secret she could share with no one save Robert. Times, it hurt like a pebble in your shoe, forgotten until you move your foot a certain way. It hurt when she called Beeto each Saturday immediately after Science Club, in order that the credit card he paid for would not show Detroit, where she was going. The pebble hurt when she called her grandmother on Friday afternoons, or declined the invitations of Angie and Joe for a Saturday’s sail or a day-long visit. She...

Home, she had come straight to her quarters without seeing anyone. She remembered that much. But now, whatever was she doing, hands flying amid the tearing and crumpling sounds of paper? She looked around at the mess: shreds of typed sheets all over her feet, the floor, the desk. Robert Thomas Hedrick’s—don’t forget the IV—autobiography of Susan Marie Schnitzer. The author wasn’t worth this stupid tantrum.

She began to pick up the paper. A pity she wasn’t a maiden in a ballad; broken-hearted she would now be, melting with love instead of anger. That would be pleasanter. She...

“‘Sing,’ said the mother bird. ‘We sing,’ said the three.” It was an old brown book her grandmother had studied in school; and now Beeto read to her from it. He had wanted to read the story of the mill that would not stop grinding salt; but she wanted to hear of the birds and as he usually obeyed her—then—he came back to the: “‘Sing,’ said the mother bird. ‘We sing,’ said the three.”

He could not understand that as long as he read, the birds sat in a line and opened their mouths and sang, but when...