MOVING THE MILLERS' MINNIE MOORE MINE MANSION

Eggers lightly fictionalizes a little-known true story of moving house (quite literally).

“Like all of the best stories, this takes place in Idaho.” Sometime in the 1870s, a prospector’s dog located evidence of silver, and soon the Minnie Moore Mine was born. Not long after, the mine was sold to Henry Miller, making it Miller’s Minnie Moore Mine. After marrying and building a gigantic house (the Millers’ Minnie Moore Mine Mansion), Mr. Miller died. His widow, left with her son and the house and conned out of most of her money by a “crooked banker,” purchased pigs to raise and sell, but the folks in town had ordinances about that. Rather than leave her house behind, Mrs. Miller concocted a wild scheme (that actually worked) to move the house out of town. Readers with a low excrement tolerance may wish to steer clear, as Sardà takes a naughty pride in seeing how many bowel movements she can work into the earth-toned piggy spreads. Eggers, meanwhile, delights in language, pulling a very natural humor out of an already silly tale. Though the tale is set in 19th-century Idaho, mention is not made of displaced Indigenous populations, and the entire cast presents as White. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A whimsical reimagining of an obscure historical event.