New England residents and lovers of the region’s history should find a treasure trove in this collection.
A reissued debut book presents a set of vignettes on life in rural Massachusetts.
“Most of the stories are true. Many, I experienced. Others are ones passed on by friends, neighbors and relatives,” writes Brown in the Preface of his collection, first published in 1982. (The author, born in 1907, died at 102.) These are folk tales in the truest sense of the word; they tell the reader not only funny or intriguing happenings, but also the everyday events of bygone years: how people went about their business and why. The stories range in time from the early Colonial days of the mid-1600s to the early 1900s, sketching out the evolution of the close-knit community of what became Fullertown, Massachusetts. The opener, “Wolf Rock,” tells of the first recorded settler of the area, John Tomson, and his perilous trip through a wild forest. “Luke Short” is the sketch of a remarkable early settler who “lived through the reign of eight British monarchs,” served in Britain’s colonial army in India, sailed across the ocean, and eventually made his way to the New World. The relationship between the native population and the settlers is explored in “The Indian Watchman,” and an influx of Acadian immigrants brings some changes to the community in “Halifax French Gardens.” On the lighter side are fishing tales like “Uncle Gus Loses His Fish,” which delivers a pretty surprising twist, and an entertaining yarn about early dentistry—“Farmer Brown Goes to the Dentist.” “Fresh Meadow Hay” and “The Gypsy Moth Hunters” aren’t so much stories as reports on how hay was harvested or the way the town dealt with moth infestations. And there are tales of communal joy, such as “The Day the Gypsies Came to Town.” A matter-of-fact storyteller, Brown pays special attention to the details and minutiae of daily life, making these vignettes uncommonly informative and in-depth even if they barely run over one or two pages. Many of the offerings display a deft comedic touch, and ironic endings abound. The effect is something like talking to an old relative about the past and listening to someone who is instantly familiar and extensively knowledgeable.
New England residents and lovers of the region’s history should find a treasure trove in this collection.Pub Date: March 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4948-5080-7
Page Count: 82
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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