TORN

In Snodgrass’ Depression-set novel, a man widely assumed to be dead returns to his hometown after a long absence and confronts his family’s turmoil as well as his own.

In 1935, John Lincoln Lyle returns to Furnass, a formerly booming mill town in western Pennsylvania, after an absence of 20 years. His locally prominent family, the owners of the Keystone Steam Works, have long believed he is dead, having been told he fell off a troopship headed to Europe and drowned. However, he survived, though with extraordinary facial injuries that have left him permanently disfigured. John Lincoln finds the family business struggling under the imprudent leadership of his older brother Gus and the family’s wealth dwindling. As Gus’ estranged wife Lily aptly puts it: “I’m afraid, as always, Gus has found ways to achieve failure against all guarantees of success.” Gus doesn’t receive John Lincoln warmly, as he’s anxious his brother might want a piece of the diminishing family pie, and John Lincoln’s reception by his twin sister, Mary Lydia, with whom he was once very close, is understandably mixed. In this thoughtful and emotionally complex tale (one of many by Snodgrass set in the fictional town of Furnass), John Lincoln begins to suspect that his family’s company is also suffering from fraud, possibly perpetrated by the designer Daniel Spalding (favored by Gus), or maybe by Gus himself. Meanwhile, John Lincoln begins a friendship with Anna O’Brien, the owner of the finest restaurant in town. Their relationship dangerously flirts with romance—she is married to and takes care of Warren, a man who once worked for the Lyle family but was horrifically injured on the job. Anna holds a grudge against the Lyles because Gus refused to financially compensate Warren for his injuries in a remarkable departure from the family’s once-vaunted concern for its employees.

Snodgrass displays an impressive sensitivity to the profound ways in which a family’s present is shaped by its past. The Lyle family tree is plagued by crooked timber—scandal and resentment haunt every member. Sometimes this complexity can be rendered in overwrought terms that suggest contrivance—the details of the death (and possibly murder) of Gus’ mother are strikingly peculiar and defy the demands of plausibility. Also, the author’s prose can be a bit leaden—here, he gratuitously reminds the reader a fictional tale is being conveyed: “So, it is night now, and all our characters are in place…all the relevant themes introduced…all the groundwork laid for future developments, entanglements, conflicts.” Thankfully, this heavy-handed absence of nuance is not the norm but rather a distracting departure from it. Overall, the story is unflinchingly realistic—there are no facile happy endings here, no neat denouements. Furnass is portrayed in such vivid color—or rather so sharply shown to be bereft of color—that the city rises to the level of another protagonist. The story provides an astute exploration of an important time in American history before a once-important region vanished into economic and cultural irrelevancy.

An intelligent examination of a fraught American family living through an equally fraught time.