The Tall Pine Polka by Lorna Landvik

Cover

 Published  in 1999, 410 pages and a Readers Guide at the end for thoughts and discussions.  I acquired it at a book sale and read it March 2024.  Just catching up on postings.  .  A very charming fiction tale set in a fictitious small town of Tall Pine in northernmost MN.  Many different personalities in the characters ranging  from comical to stoic to hysterical to the pitiful, etc.  Reminds me a bit of Virgil Wander by Leif Enger which I likely have not reviewed here but read last year or so and enjoyed.  

An aspiring film maker from Hollywood finds in the unsuspecting Fenny Ness the perfect personification of Inge, a main character in a film, to be made " Ike and Inga "

The brief prologue opens wit h 4 words Fenny wished she had never spoken, "One burrito supreme please."   The Cup O'Delight Cafe, run by Lee O'Leary,  is where all the locals gather daily to eat and stay in touch.  Lee O'Leary  has a mysterious ingredient she keeps secret that makes her coffee legendary.  Tall Pine is on the Rainy River in the farthest northern part of MN bordering on Ontario Canada.  

Prologue 

 The story opens with Fenny ice skating on Tall Pine Lake with Craig Asper who falls more than he skates.  She is barely tolerating him but he finally gives up and returns to the lodge.  She continues skating.  Her parents Sig and Wally had both passed leaving their Wally's Bait and Camp shop which Fenny their only daughter now runs.  

This review from Amazon:"In the small town of Tall Pine, Minnesota, at the Cup O’Delight Cafe, the townsfolk gather for what they call the Tall Pine Polka, an event in which heavenly coffee, good food, and that feeling of being alive among friends inspires both body and soul to dance. There’s the cafe owner, the robust and beautiful Lee O’Leary, who escaped to the northwoods from an abusive husband; Miss Penk and Frau Katt, the town’s only lesbian couple (“Well, we’re za only ones who admit it.”); Pete, proprietor of the Shoe Shack, who spends nights crafting beautiful shoes to present to Lee, along with his declarations of love; Mary, whose bad poetry can clear out the cafe in seconds flat; and, most important of all, Lee’s best friend, Fenny Ness, a smart and sassy twenty-two-year-old going on eighty.  When Hollywood rolls into Tall Pine to shoot a movie, and a handsome musician known as Big Bill appears on the scene, Lee and Fenny find their friendship put to the test, as events push their hearts in unexplored directions—where endings can turn into new beginnings."

Lee and Fenny are close friends and many try to encourage Fenny  to spread her wings beyond Tall Pine but she is just not interested.  Other characters, the pastor's wife, Gloria Murch; Mayor Lambordeaux,  Slim Knutson a Vietnam war veteran who barks and howls when emotions get to him or when he feels like it is employed at the cafe by Lee. All the simplicity is challenged when the Hollywood crew arrives looking to film.  And right about the same time a stranger Big Bill rolls into town.  He is the nephew of the recluse Indian .woman who sells vests through Fenny's shop but who wants her nephew to become more Indian than he seems.    He begins to play the piano at Tall Pine and Lee has her eyes on him but the twist is he falls for Fenny and there goes the longtime friendship.  Lee will ultimately leave for unknown parts without anyone knowing where she is.  Bill's aunt watches unhappily as he is with Fenny and when she has the chance she tries to ensure they will not be together.  

Pages 262--263   Slim tells Bill about lying and how it leads to trouble.  

A delightful tale that twists and all comes happily together at the end though not without some sorrow and twists.  We never do learn the secret of Lee's coffee.    A nice pleasant read, 4 ****