"GREEN MOUNTAINS, DARK TALES"

by Joseph A. Citro ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 23, 1999

Vermont is a region of enchantment for these several dark tales collected by Citro (Shadow Child, 1998, not reviewed) from every county in the state. The author declares his stories to be strange but mainly tree, though they're taken from older Vermont collections, archives, libraries, journals, periodicals, and newspapers--and thus are recycled, or even paranormally refurbished, yet Citro tells us that many are seeing print for the first time. His first alone is enough to make you a doubter of the rest: in 1887, five elderly Vermonters, crippled and past the age of usefulness, were drugged, stripped naked, frozen for the winter in a big wooden box, then revived the following May and fed a hearty meal. Implied is the idea that their infirmities were somehow overcome. Retold also is the story of Hetty Green, wicked witch of Wall Street, who enjoyed destroying people and who, as a result of her obsession with money, became the richest woman in the world. Too tight to rent an office, Hetty worked out of a pile of crates and boxes on the floor of New York's Chemical and National Bank. Vermont also produced a great mental oddity in Truman H. Safford, who once correctly computed in his head a 15-digit number multiplied by itself. Citro narrates his own overnight stay in ""The Dickens Room""of the Inn of Long Last in his hometown; he was kept awake, he says, by what may have been the scraping of Marley's chains. Other tales concern digging for Captain Kidd's long-lost silver, and the Green Mountain State's cryptozoological jungle provides for other curious encounters. Deserves an ad in National Enquirer. where there must be an audience waiting for it.

Pub Date: April 23, 1999

ISBN: 1584651342

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Univ. Press of New England

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999

Categories: FICTION