The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend Read Online Free PDF Page A

worked out what you’re going to say.’

 
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    Broken Wheel, Iowa
    August 23, 2009
    Sara Lindqvist
    Kornvägen 7, 1 tr
    136 38 Haninge
    Sweden
    Dear Sara,
    I’m pleased you liked Harper Lee. I don’t have any real opinions on the Swedish title, but perhaps calling it ‘Mortal Sin’ does make it sound more like a cheap thriller. You’d know better than me.
    Since you liked
To Kill a Mockingbird
, I’m sending you Kathryn Stockett’s
The Help
too. They’ve got racism in common, at least. I know there are those who doubt that racism is still such a big problem, but if you ask me it’s only middle-aged people who think that, those who think the world has automatically become better simply because they’re old enough to shape it now, but without any of them having made the slightest contribution to improving it. This is one of the few things which still gets me riled up. Too riled up, according to my good friend John. He’s black and well past middle age, and he says that everything
is
much better. In Broken Wheel, in any case. John isn’t much one for sweeping generalizations. I’ve no intention of claiming his view says anything about the world really, it’s just because people around here are used to him. He’s the only black person in town and he also runs the only shop which still sells milk, so how anyone could dislike him, I don’t know. I think it’s impossible not to like him, of course, but he doesn’t agree with that either.
    With kind regards,
    Amy Harris

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Swedish tourist in Iowa must be in want of a man
    THERE WAS AN old cinema in Broken Wheel, across the street from Grace’s diner. Its classic fifties architecture lent a certain dignity to that side of Main Street, but the cinema itself had long since stopped showing the latest releases. Then it had stopped showing films altogether. The projector had broken. These days the building was used only for town council meetings.
    Calling the group of people who met there the town council was a bit like calling the cinema a cinema; it said more about what they had once been than what they were now. In the past, there had been elections and a certain prestige in being a member. There had been money to spend and battles to be fought over what it should be spent on: new benches outside one of the churches; new street lights; the colour of the benches; the type of street lights. Whether the cinema was the pride of the town or the ruin of its children.
    Nowadays, only a handful of the town’s 637 residents were still interested in being involved in what went on in the town, and there was no longer any money to be spent.
    Still, they continued to meet on Thursdays every other week, gathering along the front row of cinema seats.
    With an air of faint dejection, Caroline Rohde watched as Jen gestured energetically up on the little stage in front of what had once been the screen.
    â€˜A tourist!’ Jen was saying, and Caroline resisted the urge to massage her temples.
    The town’s latest tourist wave was the sole item on the agenda, and Caroline was already deeply tired of it.
    She missed Amy Harris. Caroline knew that people thought she was much too hard-hearted, much too particular about everything relating to God and Jesus, and, ultimately, that she was boring. But she also knew that towns needed someone to keep an eye on them and someone to help them out; someone who knew what was right and someone who knew what was good. Caroline was one of those people, and Amy had been another. Things had always worked well while Amy was alive, but now Caroline felt alone and insufficient.
    She had never been able to help people like Amy could. Amy always seemed to know precisely what people wanted to hear. Caroline knew only what they
should
hear, and the two were very rarely the same thing.
    But both of them were needed, and now