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Author Kristin Hannah’s The Great Alone, originally published in 2017, tells the story of Leni Allbright’s coming of age in Alaska. The narrative encompasses Leni’s arrival, departure and eventual return as an adult to the small town of Kaneq. The novel begins when Leni is 13 and her father decides to move the family to Alaska. Ernt Allbright has a traumatic past due to his capture during war time. His wife Cora supports him despite his erratic moods that have been caused by his trauma and he receives land from a deceased friend who also fought in Vietnam War. He thinks this will allow him to leave behind all his troubles but instead it creates more problems for himself and those around him including his daughter Leni who grows up with no friends or any other support system except for her mother until she finally leaves home at 17 years old only returning after many years away from her parents’ house where she had lived since she was born almost 20 years prior because life on her own wasn’t working out so well either especially given how much responsibility she felt towards taking care of herself without any help from anyone else which eventually made her realize that even though leaving home was hard at first eventually it would be better than staying there forever so one day after having enough experiences on her own both good and bad she decided that maybe going back home wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all
The Allbright family is having a difficult time in Alaska. However, they find their place in the local community and befriend some of its members. Ernt finds a friend in Mad Earl, who helped give him land to settle on, and Leni makes friends with Matthew Walker’s mother when she dies.
The weather can affect people’s mental health. In the novel, “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy, when the weather changes Ernt Allbright becomes violent towards his family and drinks a lot of alcohol. This behavior affects his wife Cora who decides to leave him with her daughter Leni. They both get in an accident while driving away from their home because they don’t have any money or food left to buy anything else. After that, Cora returns back to Ernt and Leni loses hope that she will ever leave him again. Large Marge and Tom intervene forcing Ernt to go work at the pipeline until winter ends so he doesn’t have access to alcohol anymore which would make him become abusive towards them again.
Two years pass and Cora and Leni settle in. During this time, Ernt becomes a more distant father figure. He is gone from home often because of his job loss, which gives both women some peace and stability in their lives. However, when he returns early to the town after losing his job at Kaneq, he reacts with hostility towards Tom’s desire to make the town friendlier for tourists. His actions result in vandalism against the saloon and him being kicked off of Mad Earl’s property by Matthew once again. Meanwhile, Matthew has returned to Kaneq during this tumultuous period as well. He rekindles his friendship with Leni despite tension between Ernt and Tom over her relationship with Matthew. Once Cora finds out that Leni intends to study at the university in Anchorage (Matthew will be there too), she plans for Leni to go away so that she can have a better life than what she would have if she stayed behind without any education or prospects of marriage due to her mixed race heritage; however, it was not necessarily out of concern for Leni but rather an attempt on Cora’s part to keep control over her daughter since they had become estranged during these past two years while living together on Mad Earl’s land
