#781 It Grows on You- Stephen King

#781 It Grows on You- Stephen King

Old legends die hard. The biggest name in the small blue collar town of Gates Mills, Maine is Joe Newell. He was the man who bought the failing Mill  in the early 20^th century and turned it around. But he was not liked. He built a house on his large property and didn’t use local help. He never entered the local shops, nor talked to the local people. He married an unlikely woman who gave birth to a monster that died immediately. 

The resentment towards his riches and secrecy aren’t anything unique to mill towns, nor was his aloofness and snobbery. But what made him a little more odd was his house. He was alone and really didn’t need much space, but over the years he kept building new wings to his estate. “It was considered to be an affront to the sensibilities and an offense to the eye.” 

The property was also considered bad luck, as everyone who lived there, including his child, his wife, his cows, died. Eventually during the market crash he took his own life in a wing that had just been built. The property never stayed in the same hands too long, and caused similar tragedies. Now after all these years, a new wing is being added.

This is the kind of Norman Rockwell meets H.P. Lovecraft story that King usually does so well. However this one just didn’t work for me. The plot unfolded slowly and the payoff wasn’t satisfying. I found the overall style to be scattered and unfocussed. As always the imagery was enjoyable and his description of small town Americana was impeccable. One big problem I had was that the narrator, written in the author's voice (not a described third person), used some questionable language (kike, wop, moron, nitwit) that rang weird not coming from a character. Not sure why that decision was made.

Notable Passage: “Cornstalks stand in leaning rows like soldiers who have found some fantastic way to die on their feet.”

Rating: 6-7-5-4 Total= 22

#613 Rivers- John Keene

#613 Rivers- John Keene

This is a great idea for a story, and very executed. If written by somebody else about a more modern topic, I suppose this would fall under the genre of “Fan Fiction” but I wouldn’t dare call this that. Seeing as Keene is a professional, maybe it’s “Peer Fiction.”  In any case, this is a story about a famous fictional character, Mr. James Alton Rivers, aka Jim Watson, or the “slave” that was on the raft with Huckleberry Finn.

He is a freed man now, and runs into Huck and Tom Sawyer in the street. They are now in their early 20’s. Tom is a proper southern gentleman and a lawyer, Huck is still a bit of a troublemaker and an adventurer. They start talking about their lives and it becomes clear right off that Tom has no interest in seeing Jim as anything but an inferior person. Jim sees this and decides not to tell him about his life, his travels to Chicago, St. Louis, becoming a shrewd businessman, etc.

The country is on the brink of the civil war and race tensions are high and Tom has certainly taken a side on the matter. Jim is probably smart not to talk about his family escaping north, or the reality of living in the shadow of the Dred Scott case for instance.

“Though I’ve always made sure to have an escape route and a safe house on the other side of the river ready to flee given the trials the courts are putting Mr. Dred and Mrs. Lizzie Scott through.”

Tom and Huck are the ones to bring up the name of Abolitionist heroes:

“Well sounds to me like Jim is keeping himself out of trouble, and the worst thing for anybody these days is getting caught up in all that trouble, getting involved with people like Lovejoy or Torrey or that new agitator writer Mrs. Stowe what likes to stir up a whole heap of trouble too.”

Before parting we see the two youths as something different, and Keene I think writes them as two white archetypes in the struggle for racial equality. This is illustrated by the warnings Tom and Huck each give Jim as they say goodbye. Tom’s warning is straight out “know your place:”

“You’d better watch yourself, Jim, you hear me? Good thing we know you but you walking these streets like they belong to you, and they don’t to no nigger, no matter what some of you might think these days, so you watch it, cause the time’ll come when even the good people like me and Huck here have had enough.”

Huck’s warning is softer, and if not coming from a friend necessarily, it’s at least from a fond acquaintance; one that doesn’t want to see harm come but also doesn’t want to get involved:

“You take care of yourself, Jim, and keep out of all that trouble, please, cause this world is about ready to break wide open, and I sure don’t want to see you swallowed up.”

Overall I think this story is brilliant. The allegory wrapped-up in characters we are acquainted with is a great idea. Keene fills-in a perspective to the Mark Twain story that historians and critics have complained are missing in the original tales. I’m not sure if this story works as well without the original, but  I think it would be great if this story was read side by side in schools (or like I’ve said earlier teaching Henry Dumas side by side with Twain to show two different perspectives on classic Americana).

Rating: 9-10-10-9 Total= 38

#125 Weekend- Amy Hempel

#125 Weekend- Amy Hempel

I was going to skip over some of the really short pieces in these collections, but I decided not to. It’s important to see the whole short fiction genre in its entirety. A 70-page stream of consciousness ramble from David Foster Wallace next to a 3-page evening newspaper vignette from O. Henry is a tough comparison, but why do they have to be compared. I can enjoy them both.

Thus I give you Weekend by Amy Hempel. A short stage-setting piece that begins her collection, Tumble Home. It’s just a glimpse of a lazy summer outing. A softball game with no score and gin drinks splashing while running to first. “The game was called on account of dogs.”

“The Hunter retrieved a foul ball and carried it off in the direction of the river. The other dogs followed—barking, mutinous.”

This is such a delicate style of writing, you want to slow down, and savor it like the last sip of lemonade while the sun goes down.

Rating: 9-6-7-8 Total= 30

#67 Goodbye, Sweetwater- Henry Dumas

#67 Goodbye, Sweetwater- Henry Dumas

Sulfur Springs and Holly Springs, Arkansas…"The mineral richness below the surface has transformed the once cotton and tobacco lands into little pocket mining communities sticking like hardened sores beneath the white dust.”

As the Second Great Migration of black southerners to the north and western parts of the country was slowing down, the new industrialization left these communities dried up—literally and symbolically.

Families that survived slavery, war, and economic disasters were now being decimated by Jim Crow laws, and systematic upheaval.  Communities like the ones mentioned above were left with only the very old and the very young remaining to fend for themselves as best they could.

Layton is a teenager living with his grandmother. They are tight and cling to the only thing left to them, an intermittent sweet water spring. “The spring played a hide-and-seek pattern going underground and reappearing later.”

But like everything else in that part of the world, the spring will dry up eventually:

“Layton knew that staying was like dying. He could not die. He would go off and take his chances.”

His grandmother, being smart and practical agrees and encourages him to go, to do anything but stay and dry up with the sweetwater: “Go on and finish school. Go in army. Go to college. Get yourself some learnin’. Take care of your mama.”

Layton’s main source of strength and inspiration is his grandmother, it would be hard to leave her behind: “The only thing that gave Layton any real consolation was the fact that his grandmother was indestructible.”  “Somehow his grandmother was bigger and stronger than the land.”

Another beautiful story by Dumas filled with emotion, truth, and soul. There is strong commentary in here about the civil rights activism that is perfectly expressed, straight-forward, not heavy handed, and honest. As I say after each one of these: THIS SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING IN SCHOOL!

Notable Passage: “A mad dog will bite his own mother, son. So I’m sayin, son, be mad but not like a mad dog. Be right first. Be truthful first. And when you get mad at something, you got all that to back you up.”

Rating: 9-9-9-10 Total= 37