About the Trilogy…
The Minnesota-Canada Borderland Trilogy was born from the stories Carla grew up hearing from her mother and others in her hometown of Baudette, Minnesota. The trilogy begins with the award-winning Hand Me Down My Walking Cane, which was published in 2011 and is a fictional look at the real-life 1930s resettlement of Faunce, Minnesota, and other towns located in what is now the Beltrami Island Forest. Carla recently published the second in the series with Muskeg, best described as a love story and an adventure story full of suspense and a touch of northern Minnesota magic. Carla is working on the third and final novel in the series now, so stay tuned for more details soon.
Muskeg Book Trailer
Muskeg — Newly published Book 2
IT’S A STEAMY SUMMER IN 1922. Hazel and Theda are young and in love, but that love is savagely interrupted by a police raid at a Savannah speakeasy. Pressured by Theda’s wealthy family, Hazel avoids prosecution by moving as far away from Theda as possible, eventually finding peace on a remote island on the Minnesota-Canadian border, where she is captivated by the wild shores of Lake of the Woods. In 1937, Hazel is running a fishing resort with Minnie, her new love, when Theda suddenly appears with her twelve-year-old son. An angry husband and a posse of detectives are furiously tracking her, and Hazel must make a potentially dangerous and life-changing choice.
“Carla Hagen’s Muskeg is my favorite kind of novel: wickedly paced, steeped in historical details that resonate across the years…resplendent in the northern Minnesota setting, and full of characters you won’t be able to help falling in love with. At once frightening and frolicsome, here’s a story with something for everyone by a writer with more heart than most. Give it a chance, I’ll be happy to say I told you so.”
—Peter Geye, author, The Ski Jumpers
“In this homage to independent women of the 1930s, Carla Hagen returns to her cherished landscape—Lake the Woods—to create an unforgettable world of rugged beauty where chosen families are formed through loyalty and courage, and where love endures.”
—Sheila O’Connor, author, Evidence of V
“In Muskeg, Carla Hagen manages to capture the swelter of Savannah and the chill of Lake of the Woods so evocatively you can hear the cicadas and smell the cedar trees. Her story of forbidden love resonates even a hundred years on for those that are 'other', who must fight still for acceptance. A tale about challenges of another time, yet timeless.”
— Sarah Stonich, author, Laurentian Divide
“Hagen is a first time novelist and can she tell a story? You betcha.”
— dave wood, abcnewspapers.com —
Winner of two MIPA Midwest Book Awards
Best Literary & Historical Fiction
“With humor and compassion, Hagen has given us a novel well grounded in history, the result of diligent research. She has created a dazzling tale of life on the Minnesota border with Canada during the 1930’s Prohibition and peopled it with a compelling cast of characters, displaced by history and personal circumstances. Few writers equal Hagen in her ability to reproduce the harshness of the environment and the tenacity of a people struggling to survive. A riveting read and a delightful one.”
— Diana Anhalt, author, A Gathering of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates in Mexico 1948-1965
Hand Me Down My Walking Cane
Book 1, NEW 2nd Edition
At the height of the Depression, Faunce Ridge, a tiny village on the Minnesota-Canadian border, is declared a rural slum by Roosevelt’s New Deal government. Hometown boy and Farm Security Administration photographer Emil Rousseau is sent to document his childhood neighbor’s poverty to sell Congress on re-settlement. Told from the perspective of Emil, his childhood sweetheart Rose, madam Sadie, and bootlegger Magnus, Hand Me Down My Walking Cane speaks to the mystical pull of this harsh and beautiful place while bringing to vivid life the history of the borderland.
“Carla Hagen is a terrific storyteller, recreating the north country world gone by. It’s like finding a sepia-toned family album you just can’t put down.”
— Judith Katz, University of Minnesota Department of English, Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies
Reviews
“Her characters are fully realized, her descriptions of the landscape make you long for “up north” and her dialogue is spot-on. The story moves quickly, and flashes of magic are just right. In the end, this is a story about love, family and community.”
— Mary Ann Grossman, Pioneer Press
Read the full review here
“Hagen is a first time novelist and can she tell a story? You betcha. All the characters have their say in the story, which is full of history and scenes from the 30s, as when Rose follows Magnus to Minneapolis for an assignation after she gets off the train at the Milwaukee Road station and trudges up Washington Avenue past the drunks in gutters and the prostitutes on every street corner.I was charmed by this book.”
— Dave Wood of ABC Newspapers