The Allbrights Start Over in Alaska

In 1974, thirteen-year-old Leni Allbright has already grown accustomed to her family constantly starting over. Her father, Ernt Allbright, returned from Vietnam after years as a prisoner of war profoundly changed him. He suffers from nightmares, paranoia, violent mood swings, and an inability to hold down a job. Her mother, Cora, remains fiercely devoted to him despite the instability, always believing that the loving man she married is still somewhere inside him.

Their latest chance at reinvention arrives in a letter from Earl “Mad Earl” Harlan, the father of Ernt’s late Army friend Bo Harlan. Bo has left Ernt forty acres and a cabin in the tiny community of Kaneq, Alaska. Ernt immediately becomes convinced that Alaska is the answer to everything. Far away from civilization, he believes they can live off the land, escape the pressures that have made him miserable, and finally become the family they were meant to be.

Leni is skeptical, but Cora once again chooses hope. The family loads their belongings into an old VW bus and heads north.

Kaneq is far more primitive than they imagined. At the general store, they meet Marge Birdsall, better known as Large Marge, a former lawyer who abandoned city life for Alaska. She warns them that Alaska is unforgiving and that anyone who isn’t prepared can die quickly. Their new home proves her point: the Harlan property contains a filthy, dilapidated one-room cabin without electricity or running water.

Fortunately, Kaneq is a community where survival depends on neighbors helping one another. The locals arrive to teach the Allbrights how to garden, hunt, preserve food, chop wood, and prepare for winter. Among them are Tom Walker, whose family helped establish Kaneq, his wife Geneva “Genny” Walker, and their son Matthew.

For the first time in years, Leni begins to feel that she might actually belong somewhere.

Leni and Matthew Find Each Other

Because there are so few children in Kaneq, Leni and Matthew quickly become close. Matthew is funny, kind, and easy to talk to, giving Leni a friendship she has rarely had during her family’s constant moves. Their parents also become friendly, and Genny helps teach the Allbrights the practical skills they desperately need.

For a while, Alaska appears to be working its magic on Ernt too. During the endless summer days, he is energetic and optimistic. But as winter approaches and daylight disappears, his darker tendencies intensify.

He becomes increasingly influenced by Mad Earl, a paranoid survivalist who believes society is headed toward collapse. Ernt begins training obsessively for disaster, stockpiling weapons and treating outsiders as threats. His nightmares worsen, he drinks more heavily, and the isolation that he thought would heal him instead magnifies his anger.

The Walkers then suffer a devastating tragedy when Genny falls through thin ice and dies. Matthew witnesses his mother’s death and is overwhelmed by grief. Unable to recover emotionally in Kaneq, he eventually leaves to live with relatives in Fairbanks.

Leni loses the one person her age who truly understands her just as life inside her own home becomes increasingly dangerous.

Ernt Turns on Cora

As Ernt deteriorates, Cora becomes the target of his rage. Leni begins witnessing the horrifying cycle that has defined her parents’ marriage: Ernt explodes and beats Cora, then breaks down afterward, apologizing and promising that it will never happen again. Cora repeatedly forgives him because she still loves him and believes his cruelty comes from what happened to him in Vietnam.

Leni gradually understands that her mother’s love cannot save him.

After one especially violent episode, Ernt attacks Cora and the situation ends with her badly injured, including a broken arm and nose. Large Marge and Tom Walker realize how serious the abuse has become. They arrange for Ernt to take lucrative work on the North Slope pipeline during the winter, both to bring money into the household and, more importantly, to get him away from Cora and Leni. Large Marge stays close to the women while he is gone.

Without Ernt there, their home becomes peaceful. Cora and Leni get a glimpse of what their lives could be without constantly monitoring his moods.

But Ernt eventually returns, and so does the fear.

Leni and Matthew Fall in Love

By 1978, Leni is seventeen and has grown into a capable Alaskan who feels more at home in the wilderness than anywhere else. Matthew has also returned, and their childhood friendship develops into love.

Their relationship gives Leni something she has never really had: the possibility of a future separate from her parents’ destructive marriage. But being together becomes increasingly dangerous because the relationship between Ernt and Tom Walker has collapsed.

Tom wants Kaneq to grow and believes carefully managed tourism and development could improve life for the community. Ernt sees those plans as an attack on everything Alaska represents. His resentment is also intensely personal. He is jealous of Tom’s wealth, confidence, and friendship with Cora, and he becomes convinced that Tom wants to take both his land and his wife.

Ernt’s paranoia reaches frightening new heights. He builds a huge log wall around the Allbright property and tops it with razor wire, supposedly to protect his family. In reality, it becomes a prison designed to isolate Cora and Leni from everyone who might help them.

Leni and Matthew continue seeing each other secretly. They dream about escaping the cycle that has trapped her family, but their relationship has consequences neither of them is prepared for.

Leni becomes pregnant.

Cora Kills Ernt

Knowing exactly what her father will do if he discovers the pregnancy, Leni realizes she and Cora have to leave. Matthew becomes part of their escape plan.

Before they can get away safely, however, Ernt discovers that Leni is pregnant with Matthew’s child.

His reaction is terrifying. Enraged by the idea that Tom Walker’s son has impregnated his daughter, Ernt turns his violence on Leni. He attacks her with a belt, beating her viciously while Cora watches.

For years, Cora has endured his abuse herself. Watching him attack their daughter finally destroys whatever hope she had left that he could change.

She gets a gun and shoots Ernt in the back, killing him.

The women now face another terrifying problem. They know Ernt abused them, but they fear Cora will still be prosecuted for killing him, particularly because he was shot from behind. Large Marge agrees to help them cover up the death. Ernt’s body is weighted down and sunk beneath the ice of a lake, making it appear that he simply disappeared.

But the attempt to escape produces another tragedy.

Matthew, who has come to help Leni, suffers a catastrophic fall into a crevice. He survives, but his injuries are devastating. He is left with severe brain damage and falls into a coma.

Leni is pregnant, her father is dead, Matthew may never wake up, and remaining in Alaska could expose both her and her mother.

So she leaves him behind.

Leni and Cora Disappear

Leni and Cora flee Alaska and go to Cora’s estranged parents, Cecil and Golliher, in Seattle. They assume new identities, with Leni living as Susan Grant, because Ernt’s disappearance has made them fugitives.

Leni gives birth to Matthew’s son, Matthew Junior, known as MJ.

Motherhood gives her a reason to keep moving forward, but she never stops loving Matthew or Alaska. She builds a new life in Seattle, attends the University of Washington, and pursues photography, carrying with her both the beauty of Alaska and the trauma of everything that happened there.

Years pass while Cora continues protecting the secret that allowed them to escape.

Then, in 1986, Cora is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Facing death, she realizes that Leni cannot spend the rest of her life hiding because of a crime Cora committed. Before she dies, she writes a full confession explaining that she killed Ernt and that Leni was not responsible. Her final act gives her daughter the chance to stop running.

After Cora’s death, Leni decides it is finally time to go home.

Leni Returns to Alaska

Leni takes MJ back to Alaska knowing she may be arrested as soon as she arrives. She brings Cora’s confession and faces Chief Curt Ward, who investigated the Allbrights’ disappearance years earlier.

She is initially taken into custody, but the circumstances surrounding Ernt’s death are now understood far differently than they once were. Tom Walker, who has become politically influential, intervenes and reaches out to the governor. Ultimately, the charges against Leni are dropped.

For the first time since she fled, she is free.

More importantly, she finally learns what became of Matthew.

He survived.

His recovery has been long and incomplete. The brain injury permanently changed him, leaving him with difficulties speaking and communicating, but he has regained enough mobility to walk and has learned to express himself through painting.

When Leni sees him again, she introduces him to the son he never knew he had.

Leni, Matthew, and MJ Come Home

The reunion does not magically restore the years they lost, and Matthew is not the same young man Leni remembers. Still, the love between them remains, and Leni no longer wants fear to dictate where she belongs.

She chooses Alaska.

Together, Leni, Matthew, and MJ begin rebuilding their lives on the Allbright homestead. The place that once became Ernt’s fortress can finally become the home Leni had wanted it to be.

After years of violence, hiding, grief, and separation, Leni is able to remain in the landscape she loves without living under her father’s control. She and Matthew have lost years they can never recover, but they are given the chance to raise their son together and create the family and home that neither of them thought they would have.