Vermont

In the Fall, by Jeffrey Lent

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In Virginia during the last days of the Civil War, a wounded Union soldier becomes separated from his comrades and is found near death by an escaped slave who saves him. Norman Pelham and Leah Mebane become inseparable and, after he is demobilised and they marry, the two decide to walk to his home in Randolph, Vermont. As they pass through nearby Bethel, his fellow veterans—already home for several months—watch for him.

So they saw him pass along the road that Indian-summer morning with the sugarbush maples flaring on the hillsides and the hilltop sheep pastures overgrown with young cherry and maple. Word ran along the road ahead of him so near all his neighbors and townspeople saw him walking in the long easy stride of one who counted walking in months and years not miles, a rucksack cut from an issue blanket strapped to his back and by his side a girl near his own height in a sunfaded blue dress and carrying her own cardboard suitcase bound with rough twine.

Norman’s father has died while he was fighting, leaving the farm to him. His mother and two sisters, while abolitionists, are so shocked and troubled by Leah that they move into town, leaving the young couple to begin their new lives on the farm. Fired by their fierce love for each other, they ignore the scorn of their neighbors by keeping to themselves and plunging into the hard work of making a living from a hill farm.

Thus begins this saga of three generations of Pelhams, haunted by their troubled legacy of what Leah left behind and by America’s ongoing racial tensions.

This debut novel was a huge bestseller when it was released in 2000. I told the friend who recommended it to me that I didn’t know whether to bless her or curse her because I found it thoroughly addictive reading—the prose so luscious that I read slowly to savor it and could hardly bear to set it aside until I’d finished all 565 pages.

Lent takes his time with the story, enclosing me in the worlds of nineteenth-century farm life and early twentieth-century bootlegging, in New England’s mountains and North Carolina’s tobacco and cotton fields. I especially enjoyed the very specific details about tools and descriptions of places and processes in these time periods; they added so much richness to the fabric of the story. I could tell how fully the author inhabited each moment of the story as he wrote.

The partridge went up, a sudden burst of speckled animation that hit a long going-away glide down the mountain and he passed the splendid moment where his mind left him and was all out ahead of him, pinned down only on the flying bird as the gun came up. Then there was a pinwheel of feathers and both dogs broke past him and he was back.

A few things surprised me. For example, some significant events are skipped over in a sentence or two while others that seem lightweight unfold with great leisure. A possible reason could be that this is a story about men, so the female characters’ stories—aside from aspects that influence the men’s stories—are just not that important. Or maybe the reason is that we are in the men’s point of view and they simply don’t understand the women’s experiences. Maybe it’s something else altogether.

Much as I eventually loved the book, I almost stopped after the first couple of pages. Why? Because I don’t like when a chunk of text from later in the book is stuck in front as a prologue. It feels like an attempt to motivate the reader to plow through hundreds of pages until we finally meet these people and find out who they are, instead of just trusting the story. I’m not opposed to all prologues; some are great. But this book doesn’t need a prologue; Chapter One begins with a splendid hook. Once I got there, I was caught by the prose and the lovely grounding in time and place and character and theme.

I truly did not want this book to end. I keep opening it up in random places and looking closely at a single paragraph, trying to see how Lent works his magic. I read it aloud. Sometimes I copy it, writing in longhand, to get the feel of the sentences in my fingers. It really is beautifully done. I’m eager to read some of his later books.

Have you read a novel where it felt like falling into a dream from which you never want to wake up?

Northern Farm, by Henry Beston

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From the writer-naturalist author of The Outermost House, comes an invitation to share in the daily life of a farm in Maine. I found this book so comforting that I stretched it out over a couple of months, only reading one or two short chapters first thing in the day.

Looking for a quieter life than could be found in the Boston suburbs, Henry Beston and his wife, writer Elizabeth Coatsworth, moved to Chimney Farm in Nobleboro, Maine, in the 1930s and lived there for the rest of their lives.

Published in 1948, the book describes a life I thought long gone: heating with wood, using horse-drawn farm  equipment, finding dirt roads impassable in mud season, gathering for community suppers at the grange, and—most heartening—neighbors clad in red-plaid flannel helping each other out with seasonal chores. Yet when I moved to Vermont a few years ago, I found all this and more. Yes, even horses being used instead of tractors on some farms.

Home again from a visit to friends in town, glad to be back where everything doesn’t come into the house along a wire or down a pipe. What a relief it was to get into my farm clothes and have a reasonable amount of physical work to do!

These chapters, which take us through a single year on the farm, originated as a series of country-living columns in The Progressive. Each starts with a few pages full of closely observed description of Beston’s surroundings and often something of his activities that day. Here is an excerpt from a winter walk.

Then, even as I looked, something touched me on the shoulder with a new awareness, and the scene became transformed. The shadows which were but shadows turned to pools of a deep gentian blue, a color tranquil and serene, and the water, which had been but water in snow pool close beside the shadows, became a mirror of some blue and glowing vault of heaven—this other blue being as pure as the first, but perhaps more bright, and with the brightness a measure more delicate. By contrast the sky beyond both the pool and the winter shadows appeared more green. The sun shone, there was no sound, and there I was standing in the road and staring at two of the most beautiful appearances of color in Nature which I think I have ever seen. Only a ridge of purest white snow separated the shadows from the pool.

 It was as if Nature, in the depth of our winter, had called into being the delicate colors of a garden.

That section is followed by excerpts from his Farm Diary, scraps of details that evoke daily life on the land and in the community. Each chapter closes with a paragraph or two of philosophy, sometimes referencing his lifelong theme of cultivating a closer communion with the natural world.

Who would live happily in the country must be wisely prepared to take great pleasure in little things. Country living is a pageant of Nature and the year; it can no more stay fixed than a movement in music, and as the seasons pass, they enrich life far more with little things than with great, with remembered moments rather than hours. A gold and scarlet leaf floating solitary on the clear black water of the morning rain barrel can catch the emotion of a whole season, chimney smoke blowing across the winter moon can be a symbol of all that is mysterious in human life.

I’ve also been reading Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which many of you have probably already read. She draws on her own Potawatomi heritage and her scientific training as a botanist to describe—beautifully—a way of relating to the land and its plants and trees with respect and gratitude.

Both have been a balm during this terrible time, reminding me of the good in people and what is worth defending.

What are you reading to prepare for next month’s Earth Day?

A Borrowing of Bones, by Paula Munier

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Former military police Mercy Carr and Elvis are veterans of the Afghanistan war, home now but unable to shake their habits, memories and wounds. Elvis is a bomb-sniffing dog, a Malinois or Belgian Shepherd which is similar to a German Shepherd, forced to retire due to depression after the death of his partner Martinez, Mercy’s fiancé.

They take refuge in Mercy’s cabin in rural Vermont where they have plenty of forest in which to run and hike, and Mercy’s beloved grandmother, a veterinarian, nearby. On the fourth of July weekend, they escape the fireworks and mayhem by hiking in a particularly remote area.

Then Elvis alerts that there are explosives off the side of the path. And nearby Mercy finds an abandoned baby and partially buried human bones. Her 911 call brings U.S. Game Warden Troy Warner and his partner, a Newfoundland named Susy Bear. The four of them try to unravel the mystery—Mercy leaping back into law enforcement mode and Troy reminding her that she is a civilian now.

They run into territorial disputes, including the attempts pf the state police chief to keep them out of the investigation, and hostile families on remote dirt roads who don’t try to hide their disregard for the law. The more they learn, the more they fear something terrible is going to disrupt the holiday festivities in town.

I chose this story because of the Vermont setting, and was rewarded with plenty of woodsy scenes to go with the intriguing plot. The characters also appealed to me, even the minor ones. Mercy and Elvis are sensitively drawn by the author, who avoids wounded warrior stereotypes to present realistic people. Munier also manages to handle big ideas like grief, patriotism and honor with refreshing sincerity. It’s a good reminder to me, as a writer, not to back away from concepts like these for fear they’ve been overdone.

Apparently there is a whole genre of mysteries with dogs, actually a subgenre of mysteries. The two dogs are certainly full-fledged actors in this story, and fully formed characters as well, not cutesy cartoons. Among the dogs in my life have been several German Shepherds and a Newfoundland, so I enjoyed this aspect of the story.

If you’re looking for a new series of mysteries, you might check this out. I know I’ll be looking to travel more trails with Mercy and Elvis.

t’s fun when a book has a dog who works as a character. One that comes to mind is Lessons in Chemistry. Can you recommend another?

Landing, by Sarah Cooper-Ellis

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There’s a moment in mid-life when many, if not all of us stop and wonder if it’s time to change course. Maybe something brings home how short the time we have left may be, and we rethink how we ought to use it. This novel begins with such a moment (Full disclosure: I know the author slightly.) Sometimes we look back over our lives to see if we missed a turning somewhere. Sometimes we get drawn into something new almost without realising it.

At 60, Meredith Carter must take a break from her work at a childcare center due to physical injury. She enjoys her job but realises “that there was something else she should be doing.” An independent New Englander, she has only herself to consult about changing course. Her husband died 17 years earlier and her only child is grown and living in New York City.

Life in her rural New Hampshire home is disrupted by her siblings who, across the river in Vermont, are starting a maple syrup business. Smaller than a small town, the village of Middlefield where they grew up holds ghosts and memories: ponds where they used to skate, new developments covering fields that once held forests.

As she spends more and more of her time staying with one of her brothers while working in the store, Meredith feels the pull of the past even as she enjoys flexing new muscles managing sales and inventory. Then she meets Arthur, a woodworker who lives across the road. Fifteen years older than Meredith, there is a calm strength about him that draws her.

The story moves across time as Meredith explores her own willingness to return to her hometown or to share her life again. What I most love about this book are the descriptions. Meredith had once been a forester and so a walk in the woods takes us deeper into the landscape than one might expect, reminding me of Tom Wessel‘s masterful Reading the Forested Landscape. More than mere ornaments, these images embody her own exploration of her native ground.

There are a few places where I wanted more: a scene with a former boyfriend that ends almost before it’s begun, a story thread that didn’t seem to ever get resolved. But I found much to like about this book: the independent woman at its center, the immersion in rural New England life and landscape, the idea of investigating the possibility of a new life, the emotional journey of an older woman that rings so true.

What novel have you read where the landscape is an integral part of the story?

We Are as Gods, by Kate Daloz

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Recently I attended a talk about the flood of hippies and other progressives moving to Vermont in the 1970s and this book was mentioned. Having lived in a rural part of the state briefly in 1971, I was well aware of how conservative it was and so have always been curious as to how these two wildly different populations managed to coexist. Daloz’s book, subtitled Back to the Land in the 1970s on the Quest for a New America, helps me understand.

The story of the Myrtle Hill commune provides the narrative backbone, with digressions to describe the commune movement in the U.S. In 1970, three young people—Lorraine, Fletcher and Craig—found the 116-acre former potato farm and within a few weeks Craig had bought it, using his inheritance following his father’s sudden death for the down payment. Craig then created a land trust so it would be owned in common with everyone taking turns covering the mortgage payments.

After the group, which quickly swelled in numbers, discovered the joys of mud season in Vermont, they spent an idyllic summer living in tents, tipis and lean-tos. “It was like a weeks-long camping trip, but more romantic because this was not a mere vacation, but, for all of them, their new way of life.

They were determined to be self-sufficient, acquiring chickens, two milk cows and a beef calf who all had to be cared for. Besides building a rough shed for the chickens, they dug an outhouse and planted a garden. Water for cooking and washing had to be hauled in five-gallon buckets in the back of Craig’s truck. Lorraine prepared meals over an open fire, while Nancy cared for the children. The group had big plans for the future—a school for the children, wind-powered generators, a radio station—but their immediate task was to build a geodesic dome for winter housing.

We also get to know their neighbors, some who were original Vermonters and some, like the author’s parents, who wanted to go back to the land but were not interested in the communal part.

As with other groups during this idealistic period, the Myrtle Hill residents had no leader, making decisions by consensus. They embraced free love and shared occasional after-dinner marijuana; their open-door policy welcomed curious hippies and others. However, as seen by the division of labor above, they had brought gender role assumptions with them. And then, of course, winter arrived.

Daloz follows the group from its idealistic beginnings through the gradual disenchantment, conveying their stories realistically yet with sympathy. Even in describing her parents’ path, her journalistic tone doesn’t waver.

It’s a fascinating book, combining the intense focus on Myrtle Hill and its neighbors with a wide-ranging summary of the counter-culture of the period, the growth and brief life of the commune movement, and the gradual recognition among the commune members that no one is actually self-sufficient. We all, including their original Vermont neighbors, rely on our community, and some jobs are full-time so are better left to someone else.

At first the book saddened me, as I remembered my own back-to-the-land dreams of the same period. But as I read on, I realised that my reasons for not eventually choosing that path had been good ones. I’d had the good fortune to work on a friend’s dairy farm for a season and quickly saw that while I enjoyed the work, such a life was not for me. The idea of writing at night when the farmwork was over turned out to be a ridiculous fantasy, for all the reasons that plagued the young people in this book.

So when I did start visiting communes thinking I might find one where I could prosper, I knew what to look for. I ended up choosing community over commune, and do not regret it. Still, this book brought back many pleasant memories and also helped me to better understand the culture in today’s Vermont.

Have you read a book that took you back to an earlier period in your life?

Borderlines, by Archer Mayor

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If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know I like mysteries. Their literary quality is often outstanding, and I always love a good puzzle. This second book in Archer Mayor’s series featuring Joe Gunther hits every mark, making it one of the best police procedurals I’ve read.

Gunther, a policeman in Brattleboro, Vermont, has been seconded to the State’s Attorney at the opposite end of the state. Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom is an isolated, rural area far from the state’s scenic mountains and tourist destinations, and depressed economically, even in 1990 when this novel came out.

He’s familiar with the area, having spent childhood summers here with his aunt and uncle. He’s looking forward to time with his now-widowed Uncle Buster, whose benevolent support he could use as he wrestles with questions regarding both work and love.

In the gripping opening scene, Gunther’s journey is interrupted by an illegal shot, but he is quickly reminded that his authority as a law enforcement officer is limited in the Northeast Kingdom, which is “populated by people who had chosen to put their independence and wariness of the rest of the world above the hardships of living here.”

The pace doesn’t let up, as Gunther arrives in Gannet, the small village of his childhood summers. Ramshackle and rundown, the town allowed half of its building to be bought up by an intentional community, seen by some as a cult. Tensions between the Order and the town have grown, only to explode when a couple from Massachusetts arrives to rescue their daughter. The tension is nicely modulated, with plenty of scenes of Gunther sitting on a step with a childhood friend, walking with his uncle, or phoning his girlfriend to vary the suspense before building to a satisfying climax.

What’s best here is Gunther himself. With this character Mayor finds just the right balance of thought and action. Gunther’s quiet, unassuming voice sets him apart from sometimes brash or bragging detectives. Though there’s not a lot of soul-searching, he’s quick to acknowledge his own mistakes. We’re given all we need to perceive his sorrow at the way the village and its people have deteriorated. The loss of his childhood refuge provides shading to Julie’s story, the young woman whose parents have come to steal her from the cult.

There is one twist that seemed to come almost out of nowhere. Mystery writers have the daunting task of planting enough clues to significant plot twists so that readers think Oh, of course! Why didn’t I see that? while not so many that we guess it too soon. Mayor did an excellent job of preparing for all the plot twists here, save one, noticeable only because of the superb plotting everywhere else.

In talking about the elements in fiction, plot and character are the stars. Increasingly, though, I find myself drawn to novels in which the setting is richly evoked and becomes almost another character. Mayor does that here, brilliantly. The environment he evokes helps us anticipate and understand the people in this story, all brought to life, no matter how small their role. It also charges the mood of the story.

When I was younger, the Kingdom had been much as the name implies – a magical other world, removed from the mainstream and endowed with a specialness in the minds of those who knew of it. Its topography, both rugged and cursive, could reject and embrace, kill and nurture. It was a place where land and weather ruled, where the beauty came less from the majestic mountain views found further south, and more from the perpetual surprises that lurked behind the low, ever-present hills. Even at its harshest, the Kingdom was seductive, as when its omnipotent sky darkened with boiling blue-black clouds, low slung and pregnant with threat.

Its people, like those of Gannet, clung to this mercurial terrain mostly out of choice . . . They were independent, self-supporting, proud, and generally uninterested in what was happening outside of their boundaries . . . But, obviously, the fabric of the Kingdom had begun to strain and yield.

Even now, several decades after publication, this book is a valuable resource if you want to understand the crumbling lives of the rural poor. Mayor’s insight into his fellow Vermonters is demonstrated on every page. As death investigator for Vermont’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and formerly a detective and volunteer firefighter, Mayor brings the authority of real-world experience to this spellbinding tale.

Have you read one of Archer Mayor’s books? What did you think of it? Do you have a favorite?

Hawke’s Discovery, by Mark Willen

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Last week I described Erica Bauermeister’s The School of Essential Ingredients, as a restorative read, much needed after a series of books with unpleasant and untrustworthy protagonists. This week I’ve struck gold again.

Jonas Hawke, a retired lawyer in Beacon Junction, Vermont, finds himself in a moral and ethical dilemma when his son Nathan, editor of the local paper, begins investigating one of Jonas’s old cases. Nathan is intrigued by the possibility of a coverup involving the leading contender for governor in the upcoming election. A big scoop like that could lead to a job offer from a large city paper, something Nathan has been seeking for a while.

However, Jonas’s client confidentiality severely limits how far he can go in answering Nathan’s questions, much to his son’s frustration. Nathan points out Jonas’s responsibility to his fellow citizens: what if Martha Bennett wins the gubernatorial election and then is indicted for obstruction of justice?

This is just the sort of story I needed right now. I love to see ordinary people with a strong sense of integrity navigate the tricky waters of an ethical dilemma. Nathan and Jonas are not the only ones in this story with competing personal and professional responsibilities.

The mystery of what happened in that long-ago case and the various interpersonal conflicts provide tension, but the real suspense is about the characters. What course will they choose? What will the outcome be?

What I like most about this book is its subtlety. All of the characters mean well. They want to do the right thing, if they could only be sure what that is. They seem like people I know. You don’t need a villain in a story like this. We are our own worst antagonists, drifting in the dark without a map.

I recently participated in a book dissection of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. My fellow authors and I couldn’t understand why it became such a big bestseller. There were things we appreciated: a quirky and charming cast of characters and an unusual real-life setting, for example. There were things we didn’t like: such as the misleading title and the epistolary format that made all the action happen off-stage.

What we finally concluded was that it was the heart of the book that made it appeal to so many people. To quote from John J. Kelley’s summary of our discussion, while “the novel never shies away from the tragedies of life” it has “an enduring optimism that many in the group found refreshing in these uncertain times. It was an unexpected charm that surprised many of us.”

Mark Willen’s novel has the same sort of heart. While exploring the murky regions where integrity is put to the test and competing responsibilities rend us, Hawke’s Discovery gives us characters who despite their flaws are essentially good. If you’re suffering from too many stories of sociopaths, serial killers and rapists, pick up this novel. It will refresh you with its enduring optimism.

What books have you read that feature characters who seem like people you know?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a copy of this book free from the author. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.