Nightwoods by Charles Frazier

Three separate events make up the backstory to Nightwoods: one horrific night for Luce just after graduating from high school; the murder of Luce's sister Lily by her dirtbag of a husband; the death of old man Subblefield who owns the decaying old hotel where Luce works as the sole caretaker. The time is early 1960s in the North Carolina mountains.

That horrific night was the catalyst for Luce to turn her back on the world and live a near monastic life of solitude and near silence in the mountains. Lily and Luce were raised (a term more ironic than accurate) by a couple of young narcissists for too young to be having children. Their mom just took off and their father was entirely disinterested. The death of Lily means that Luce is the sole surviving relative of Lily's preschool twins that DCFS drops off on Luce's doorstep. Now Luce doesn't really like kids, but she will love them despite the state's doctors calling them feebleminded, and being told not to turn her back on them, to hide the matches, and don't let them near chickens. These kids have been scarred and while Luce wants to know how and why, she is willing to let the kids warm to her on their own terms.

Lily's killer, Bud, beats the charge in the state court in Raleigh and decides to seek a new life as a bootlegger and dealer at the far end of the state. As luck would have it, he ends up in the town near where Luce is delicately and decently trying to bring the children out of their trauma-induced shell. Old man Stubblefield left the old lodge, a rundown bar, some bottom land near the lake, and plenty of unpaid taxes to his grandson who, once he learns his way around, takes a liking to Luce and respectfully tries to court her while attempting to gain some acceptance by the children who watch silently while rocking on the lodge's porch or while building fires or breaking chicken's legs.

Bud is sure that Lily somehow got some money of his to Luce or into the kid's possessions and fueled by booze, starts to make his play. But once he has broken in the lodge to look, he is surprised by the children. Startled by seeing Bud, and fearing for their own well being (they must've seen Bud kill their mother), they pack up necessities like okra, matches and kindling, some fruit and peanut butter, borrow a neighbor's horse and head up into the mountains in November to get away from Bud leading to a search party, camping rednecks, a black hole of a quarry, rattlers, bears, and an early season snowfall to tie up the lose ends of the story.

Frazier is as famous for his stunning debut novel (Cold Mountain) as he is for the $8million advance for his less than stunning 2nd effort (Thirteen Moons). This is one part departure for Frazier (it's 20th century instead of 19th) and one part return to what worked in Cold Mountain, where he alternated chapters telling of Iman's walk across NC to get to his home and of Ada's struggle to survive as an outsider in the mountains until Iman returns from the civil war. Here, he flips back and forth between Bud and Luce with each chapter. Both Bud and Luce are fascinating characters in entirely different ways.

Frazier's writing is incredibly lyrical and you want to reread sentences just because they practically sing out to you. And therein lies the problem. The pacing of the story runs as slow and as thick as the sap of the pine forests so eloquently described by Frazier. For 200 pages, Frazier DETAILS the comings and goings of mountain life that is mired in post world war glow with little attention to what's going on beyond the reaches of the scratchy local AM radio station's narrow broadcast radius. When 3 subplots (Luce/Stubblefield/kids, Bud, and the deputy sheriff) come together, a literate, if plodding version of some latter-day Faulkner tale becomes a must-read. But in the end, I was kind of let down by how the story closed, coming full circle back to the delicate, quiet life that Luce had cut for herself.

For those who choose to read this because of Cold Mountain, don't expect a revisit to his recreation of the horror of post-civil war NC. At least you won't need a dictionary of 19th century English for Nightwoods. What you will need is patience to let the story slowly unfold as well as be prepared to appreciate the all too frequent passages that light up this vaguely dark tale set in some southern gothic town that none of us will ever find on any map.

East Coast Don

Avalance: Lessons of Love

This is a nonfiction work about overcoming loss and tragedy. Alfonso Ochoa was a successful Mexican industrialist who was also an adventurer. As he had done before, in 1991, he flew from his home in Guadalajara to the Bugaboo Mountains in Canada for helicopter skiing with his buddies. He left behind his wife of 17 years and their six kids, the youngest being less than a year old. He never came back alive. On the day of his death, Alfonso was the only one of the Mexican crew who wanted to get in one more run, so he joined some others for a lift back up the mountain while his buddies retired after a beautiful and exciting day. On the last run, there was an avalanche that killed Alfonso and 8 others. Only the guide somehow survived. Alfonso’s wife, Kris, is an American woman who tells this story. There’s an evil brother-in-law, Francisco Ochoa, who stole her businesses and her fortune. Although she knew it was against long odds, Kris sued the tour company that put her husband in harm’s way, but the Canadian courts did not find in her favor. Then, she was countersued and had to pay back the attorney fees for the very people that were responsible for her husband’s death. Real life can not only be stranger than fiction, but also crueler. Meanwhile, Kris had to raise her family, but she had to do so without her wealth. Each of the family members went through turmoil in the face of moves from Mexico to San Diego, not only changing schools, but also changing languages and cultures. But, Kris is far more than a survivor – her life is a testament to perseverance and faith. For an atheist like me, it was hard to identify with some of the passages when she referenced and emphasized her belief in God. But, she also wrote about using meditation and spirituality to keep her mind on track. She found her way into another wonderful relationship, a man who she completely loved and who totally filled the role of father to her six children. After some great years together, her second husband died suddenly from pancreatic cancer, so Kris was back in the midst of hardship without a partner to help her through. She tells the rest of her story, bringing you up to the present, regarding how she bounced forward another time. Sometimes, I thought the writing was a bit weak, but the story is gripping, one that you won’t put down. It is a remarkable, compelling, and true story of love, loss, and triumph.

Headstone by Ken Bruen

Rest easy, children. Jack Taylor is watching out for you.

Brine has threatened, intimidated, and manipulated some mates in boarding school to be his followers - members of Headstone. And he has a goth girl for a lover. On a mission. Make history. Have movie made about him. Get on Oprah. Never be forgotten. They start out with an assault on an old priest. Then they kill a Down's child. Other killings and maulings happen around Galway and The Guard thinks they are random. Jack, his sort of friend and ex-con Stewart and former Guard partner Ridge (the lesbian who married to a schmuck rich boy in need of arm candy) think otherwise because each have received a little gift in the mail. About the size of a deck of cards, they get their very own headstone.

Jack continues to fight his personal demons of his past as well as his inability at keeping any friendships ("We were never going to be friends, Jack, and you know I doubt we ever were."). His diet has the 4 major food groups (Jameson, cigarettes, black coffee, Xanax) to help with with 4-5 side stories. Like a creepy priest dressed in an Armani stole who represents a shadowy group inside the church trying to dress up the church's image with "smooth lies of an insincere priest." He hires Jack to find a renegade priest who supposedly ran off with The Brethren's money. Or Kosta, a crime boss who is indebted to Jack (from an earlier book) and will do anything for Jack, but expects the same in return.

Ridge is the victim of a anti-lesbian attack. Jack is assaulted, beaten, and tortured ending up in the hospital . . . minus two fingers. He asks Kosta for weapons. Sets up Stewart as bait. Then kidnaps the goth, applies his own torture to find out what Bine's plan is. So he and Stewart head out, armed to the teeth and scared shitless ("I'm bad tempered naturally. Fear makes me dangerous"). But afterward, Jack is wracked with some measure of guilt and heads for the bottles (Jameson and Xanax) looking for some solace because "they haven't invented the drink that wipes the slate clean of utter treachery."

Bruen liberally spices his books with current book, music, and movie references and this one Taylor suggests that Ridge take up some fiction and suggests a MRB fav - James Lee Burke. Smart guy. I've read a bunch of Bruen. Right now, I'd say this is my #2 favorite of his books.

Jack may limp and have to wear a hearing aid. But be glad he's on the case. When he's done, you are clean and Jack carries away your guilt and pain, when he does, "Elvis hadn't so much as left they building as stormed out with murder aforethought."

East Coast Don

Winterkill

This was a very good book. It’s apparently only the third in the series, and there’s no doubt I’ll read more. Winterkill is the term used for the number of elk that die during the winter season, mostly from starvation and the bitter cold. Game Warden Joe Pickett, from Twelve Sleep County, Wyoming, was out checking on the herd when, from a great distance, he saw his Forest Service supervisor, Lamar Gardiner, simply start shooting an entire herd of elk. Even though it was hunting season, the limit was only one animal. Joe, who had once arrested the governor for fishing without a license, began pursuing his supervisor with the intent of locking him up. By the time he got to him, the man was almost dead. He had been shot in the torso with two arrows which pinned his body against a tree. Before Joe could get him to a hospital, Gardiner died. It turns out there had been some unrest in the area over the Feds who ran half of the state via the Bureau of Land Management, and Gardner was a target for that unhappiness. Melinda Strickland was the new Forest Service official who had come to Wyoming to deal with the unrest, and she was focused on an odd lot of displaced people who had chosen a spot in the national forest to camp out. She was sure they were the source of that murder, and other problems. She was determined to evict them from the forest, a task Joe rightly thought was ridiculous, and he could not see the connection between the problems that Strickland claimed and the “sovereigns” who just wanted to be left alone. To complicate things, one of the sovereigns was the mother of April Keeley, the little girl who was abandoned about the same time Joe and his wife, Marybeth, lost a baby when Marybeth lost a baby because she was shot in the stomach while pregnant. It had been five years since that happened, and Joe and Marybeth had brought April into their home and loved her as if she was their own child, their third daughter. Now, Jeannie Keeley wanted her daughter back and the Picketts were not about to let that happen. Except, Jeannie gets a court order for custody of her daughter, and takes her to camp with the sovereigns. There’s one more very important character that fits into the story. Nate Romanowski is a mountain man, a former Special Forces guy, a guy who is totally tuned into his environment, a man who is the ultimate loner who has been living with little contact with other humans for many years. It was Nate who was first arrested for the murder of Gardiner. The clash of story lines takes the maniacal Strickland on a rampage against the sovereigns, setting up a possible Ruby Ridge/Waco scenario. Joe just wants to make sure his daughter is safe. C. J. Box is now in my power rotation of authors. Pickett is a great character and he is put in plot lines that are intense and very believable. This was a most entertaining read, one that I did not want to put down. I’ve already gotten the next one in the series, Nowhere to Run.