MARIE BLYTHE

by Howard Frank Mosher ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1983

Mosher (Disappearances, Where the River Flows North) sets his ambitious new novel in the area he has explored before, a locale with which he is obviously intimate and comfortable: Kingdom County, in the northernmost reaches of Vermont; the town here is called HeWs Gate, a turn-of-the-century factory village lorded over benevolently by Captain Abraham Benedict, maker of fine furniture and man of vision. Benedict's son Able, however, is another story: he's a thoroughgoing villain who pathologically subverts his father's desires for Hell's Gate--eventually throwing the factory into bankruptcy, the town itself onto the auction block, and the very land into an inferno. And most of this small-town epic is told through the involvement of Marie Blythe, a French-Canadian orphan who is raised by Gypsies, then brought into the Benedict home. . . and made pregnant by Able, resulting in a secret miscarriage. (Captain Benedict--and others--are hoodwinked by greedy Able into believing that a baby was indeed born.) Marie is no long-suffering victim, however: Mosher casts her firmly in the role of Strong Woman--as she becomes the village schoolteacher, the town's leading independent thinker, a survivor of consumption (which killed her mother), and the most valiant, decade-by-decade opponent of Abie's evil machinations--ending up with a violent showdown and that fiery fadeout. Unfortunately, however, though Mosher works hard at detailing Marie's inner strength, she moves from crisis to crisis with sluggish nobility; she is much too predictably invincible in each and every rough encounter; she is, in short, very rarely interesting. (Compare Marie with the title character of Page Edwards' very similar, much tauter Peggy Salte, above, to see the difference between a mere thematic vehicle and a full-blooded, believable Strong-Woman character.) And, though meticulous in its often-impressive regional ambience, this large, sweeping novel is ultimately, oddly limp--less vivid in evocative impact than some of Mosher's previous Vermont tales.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1983

ISBN: 1584653647

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION