"It was late September of 1865 before he passed through Bethel on his way back to the hill farm, months after his fellow members of the 2nd Vermont had returned in pairs or small groups. Although word of him had spread beyond that group of veterans, they would not speak of him; any of them who were approached by his mother would only assure her he'd be along any day and last they'd seen him he was fine . . . They were not the sort of men to place themselves in another's shoes and would not voice an opinion unless the matter bore directly upon them. And this with Norman did not. Still, they watched the road."
Finally on one fine Indian-summer morning when the sugarbush maples flared on the hillsides and the hilltop sheep pastures were overgrown with young cherry and maple, Norman Pelham did return home from the war. He was not alone.
Critics have unanimously praised "In the Fall." The praise is warranted. This richly layered story of a rapidly evolving America, from life on a farm in Vermont, through the final years of Prohibition and bootlegging, is a remarkable portrait of an American family. The dark secrets that foment at its core, the transcendent bonds between men and women that fuel their lives over the course of six decades are written in imagery and detail so fine, one would expect no less than a Faulkner or a Steinbeck to have authored this work. Yet, this is a first novel by a young man born in Vermont and raised there and in western New York State. His education began in one-room schools in Vermont and went on to include private progressive high school. He attended Franconia College in New Hampshire and Purchase College in New York. He now lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter.
The generations of the Pelham family are laid bare for readers to absorb. The events surrounding Norman Pelham's homecoming with the young slave girl, Leah, begins a tale of love, prejudice, and mystery. It travels narrow pathways as the pair settles into farm life on the Pelham farm. Gradually you learn how these two came together, how their devotion grew strong enough to face all but one secret that Leah carried north with her.
The second generation reveals the life of Norman and Leah's son James. James is the youngest of the Pelhams' three children. The summer of 1904, James leaves home with money he earned and sixty dollars taken from his father. He's 19 years old, small limbed, lithe, with a sense of motion about him even when standing still. To look at him, you might think him French or Italian, and James let people think what they would, it was no concern of his.
In his travels he meets a young woman named Joey. Their tempestuous relationship begins as wildly as a summer storm. Both retained the fevers of hate buried deep within them, but they stayed together. Joey, from Canada, became a singer in a Casino in Bethlehem while James worked the night shift managing a lounge in Sinclair. He also did a bit of illegal bootlegging after hours along the side streets and alleyways.
James' liquor business thrived and he saved his money as a legacy for his only surviving child, a son named Foster Pelham. His wife and a young daughter had died during the winter of 1918 in the great flu epidemic. Foster carries the story of the third generation.
Foster looked like his father, dark hair and eyes, long limbed with shoulders like river rocks. He owned little of a child's exuberance. What joy he had died with his mother and sister. In 1926, when Foster was 16 years old, his father died a horrible death at the hands of thugs affiliated with a gangster boss. A voice from the past, a reminder that what goes around comes around, sometimes later than sooner. In James' effects, Foster found a letter from an Abigail Pelham, sister to his father. Now, Foster knew where to find his father's family. Driving his father's shiny new car and endowed with a small fortune in cash, Foster makes his way to the Pelham farm in Vermont. There he finds his true and most surprising family heritage. A discovery that sets him on a southern route to his grandmother's long undiscovered beginnings.
In Sweetboro, North Carolina, Foster meets Alexander Mebane, his grandmother's true half-brother. You can't help but wish Foster had stayed in Vermont with his Aunt Abigail, but he didn't, and his life took a turn no one could have predicted.
Lent's writing is as lyrical as the soughing of maple leaves. Yet, when needed, his words snap and leave splinters of guilt in your heart. His unique style and voice amazed me. The odd sentence structure, which revealed the thoughts and depth's of his characters, might cause English teachers to shiver. The style works though. My, oh my, how it works.
Every scene is placed just so. Each chapter carrying the storyline forward to something new, something even dangerous. The pace is slow, deliberate, and enticing as the fragrance of lilacs.
There is a strange satisfaction to the conclusion of Lent's family saga. Sometimes life just turns things all upside down and all around where the beginning is the ending and the ending is the beginning.
"In the Fall" deserves all the kudos given it by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and The Library Journal. Remember the name, Jeffrey Lent. He is a remarkable new author with the skill of a master storyteller.
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(Jones is a published writer and literary critic)
COPYRIGHT AUGUST 15, 2000, PATRICIA A. JONES, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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