THE HIRED MAN

John Tallertine traverses the Cumberland country of England, circa 1898--1923, always struggling against the stigmatic self-erosion of being The Hired Man. The novel opens serenely enough, matched as it is throughout to the tone and pace of the pivotal relationship--that of John and his wife Emily. Exuberant, proudly responsible, eighteen-year-old John hikes for the ""Hiring"" to Cockermouth, securing work and cottage for his soon to be expanded family. Driven to assert his independence, he invites, senseless overwork which ruins his home life. Pristine happiness clouds and congeals to coexistence, pitching the story into a wintry and unbroken gloom, appropriate to a succession of misfortunes (children's deaths, infidelity, sub-poverty), not the least of which is John's catatonic hopelessness which finds respite finally in the undersea mines of West Cumberland where he works until the war. Returned from soldiering, John re-enters the mines until Emily's tubercular death. The full circle is formed as John then turns once more to farm and finds himself for hire. Mr. Bragg's novel has Faulknerian thematic echoes of the heavy triumph of those who endure. Since it is handled with scrupulous understatement, the narrative develops with a modest but cumulative verity. The dialogue, while good, is in dialect and can prove distracting, as are some of the author's over-verbalized thought processes for his simpler characters. The peculiar quality of the book, due in part to its time frame and sometimes densely literary language, may make it difficult to find the right audience.