BEAR CREEK – A Synopsis
Bear Creek is a fictional town in Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula. It is best described as a
cross between The Little House on the
Prairie's Walnut Grove and Garrison Keilor’s Lake Woebegone. The year is 1923 and prohibition is in full
swing. The Ladies’ Aid Society from the
local Methodist Church is the town’s self-proclaimed moral conscience and seeks
to close down the Snake Pit Saloon, which they believe is providing the men
with liquor. (No women are allowed
inside, thank you.) Another concern is
Polly, Molly, and Dolly, collectively known as the “Ollies.” Since they have no last names or visible
means of support, the women assume they are “soiled doves.”
The Bear Creek Economics club, consisting of the more
influential men of town, meets every morning at Mel Barker’s Hardware and Feed
Store, where they plan strategies to protect their assets, e.g. moonshine and
the Ollies, from their meddling wives.
In their spare time, they organize MACHO nights (Men Advocating
Completely Hedonic Outings) in which they play poker and drink moonshine while
hiding from their spouses.
In the midst of this confrontation between the Ladies’ Aid
Society and the Economics club, arrives a new preacher. He is replacing the previous pastor who is
weaving baskets in a downstate sanitarium.
The Rev. Rudy Hooper is a naive, quixotic individual who has difficulty
relating to women. The Widow Watson
declares him fair game and launches an all-out, romantic attack. The Widow Watson is only part of Rudy’s
worries: Luther, an obsessive-compulsive beaver, floods out Rudy’s garden and
outhouse. In an attempt to eliminate
the beaver, Rudy skinny-dips his way to the beaver lodge in the dead of night
with a stick of dynamite. As the full
moon rises, the townsfolk see the naked figure on the beaver lodge but assume
it is Abigail Farnsworth who, according to local legend, is constantly chased
naked through the woods by a grizzly bear and returns to the beaver lodge
during a full moon in search of her clothes.
Rudy throws the dynamite into the air where it explodes. The townsfolk, seeing the flash and hearing
the thunder, conclude that the Lord is about to smite them like the citizens of
Sodom and Gomorrah for their evil ways, and church attendance increases fifty
percent. The minister believes he is
going insane when the church youth convince him he has assaulted the Widow
Watson.
Man vs. woman is the major conflict in this story. In an effort to rid the town of the
“Ollies,” the women plan a sting operation.
Photographs are to be obtained and names taken, which will later be
printed in the local paper. The Bear
Creek Economics Club hears of the plan and warns the men—all except the new
pastor who decides to visit the Ollies and invite them to church. Members of the Ladies’ Aid Society crash
down the door only to get a picture of Molly giving a five-dollar bill to the
pastor for the church’s pet charity.
(It would later be questioned as to which way the money was flowing.) The blinding flash from the camera convinces
the pastor he is having a divine revelation like Saul on the road to
Damascus. He stumbles and falls,
hitting his head. He awakens convinced
he had a seizure caused by an incurable brain tumor.
The men do not always win in the confrontations. When the women discover their husbands
celebrating a MACHO night at their still, the female commandos descend upon the
panic-stricken men with axes and sludge hammers, converting the still into
scrap metal and the vats of corn whiskey into kindling wood. Their inebriated husbands are subdued by
their ears, and the long trek home begins.
Penance begins in the morning.
In addition to the humor, there is drama, as four-year-old
Becky Hakanen gets lost in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve requiring the townsfolk
to forget their differences and search for the missing child. They are forced to place their hopes on a
pair of misfits when other search teams return empty handed. P.C. Taylor, the town mayor, and his best
friend Chief Red Weasel are not noted for their common sense, but no one knows
the woods better than they do. Despite
their expertise, they fail to find the missing girl. The half-frozen child is eventually found and brought back to
life by either the legendary Abigail Farnsworth or a Christmas angel.
All is well that ends well. Becky is found in what appears to be a Christmas miracle, the
teenagers ‘fess up to their prank, and the Widow Watson gets her man. Polly and Dolly decide to move on to another
town while Molly, who now prefers to go by the name of Nora Jane, marries a farmer
and joins the church. In the end the
Lord looks down upon Bear Creek from heaven on high and proclaims—“It is Good!”
The main theme of the story is about an urban Methodist
minister who is thrust into a foreign culture.
The humble, but sincere, minister gives his all but cannot measure up to
his own expectations. He loses faith in
himself, his religion, and eventually his sanity. In the end, he discovers that, despite his shortcomings, he has
made a difference in the lives of his parishioners.
If you feel that Bear Creek is the kind of novel that you
might be able to sell, I would be happy to send sample chapters or the complete
manuscript. After all, if God said it
is good, how can an agent go wrong?