Ordinary Grace

 

Ordinary Grace

By William Kent Krueger

1961. Frank Drum is thirteen years old, living in a quiet town in Minnesota. That summer will change his life forever. Ordinary Grace is his story…told from Frank’s perspective forty years later.

I spent most of my own childhood in a small town in Indiana. I remember riding bikes without helmets, playing kick the can until the stars came out, catching fireflies in jars. Looking back now, I realize how fearless our parents seemed…never doubting we’d return home safely. Those were the days.

In the novel, five lives are lost during that summer, each death rippling through the town and reshaping the lives of its people. I turned the final page late last night and lay there, thinking about this past year…about the many people I’ve lost.

Five friends. All but one my age. All gone.

• David – Suicide
• Kelly – Died in her sleep
• Michelle – Heart failure
• Fred – Heart failure
• Moses  – My dearest friend, Katie’s beloved dog whom I loved dearly - Died in his sleep

It’s staggering. Mortality feels closer now, more personal.

The book asks us to consider grace in its quieter forms…the kind that shows up without fanfare, through compassion, presence, and courage.

It made me ask myself: How do I respond to grief? How do I carry the weight of my mistakes…the pain I’ve caused others? And most importantly, how do I show up for others when life is hard?

I believe grace requires presence. It asks us to sit with others in their pain, even when our own hearts are breaking.

“The dead are never far from us. They're in our hearts and on our minds, and in the end all that separates us from them is a single breath, one final puff of air.”

Frank’s summer is filled with mystery, crime, secrets, prejudice, and lies. But this isn’t a traditional crime novel. It’s a meditation on family, community, and the nature of grace…whether granted by God or by flawed, fragile human beings in moments of crisis and loss.

Frank’s father is a Methodist minister and WWII veteran, carrying the weight of old regrets. His mother, artistic and restless, seems quietly disappointed by the life she’s built. His older sister is a gifted musician bound for Juilliard, and his younger brother Jake struggles with a severe stutter.

I won’t give everything away, but there’s a moment at a funeral when Frank’s mother asks her husband to offer, just once, an ordinary prayer. Jake, usually silenced by fear, stands, bows his head, and speaks without a single stutter:

“For the blessings of this food and these friends and our families, we thank you.”

That was it. Simple. Ordinary. Yet across the forty years since it was spoken, Frank has never forgotten a single word.

Ordinary. Grace.

This book is about life and death, and the emotions that shape us. It’s about bearing witness to pain without being consumed by it. Grace often lives in the small moments…a stranger’s smile, a shared meal, a hand reached for and held in silence. These are the acts that hold us together when the world feels like it’s falling apart.

Grace isn’t unattainable. It’s ordinary. Woven into our daily lives. Waiting to be recognized. Waiting to be shared.

We only need to choose it.