I remember, I remember

The house where I was born,

The little window where the sun

Came peeping in at morn;

He never came a wink too soon

Nor brought too long a day;

But now, I often wish the night

Had borne my breath away.

—Thomas Hood

This novel significantly affected this reviewer simply because I gradually developed a tremendous empathy with the protagonist, a woman who is close to the end of her life and spends much of her time “summing up.”

Could she have done better? Now, alone except for her aging dog, Rufus, she sits staring through her living room window, watching the familiar contours of her neighborhood vanish beneath the attack of the municipal bulldozers and jack hammers. The construction of a new water/sewer system has rendered her beloved neighborhood unrecognizable, filling the air with noise and dust.

All of her old friends are either dead or moved away and her life has been reduced to boring routines: washing the dishes, paying the bills, checking the mail. Emily needs a change.

When  Arlene, her best (and only) friend keels over at the Eat ‘n Park, “two for one” breakfast buffet, Emily’s life becomes even more constricted.

Having become dependent on Arlene to drive her to the library, the grocery store and church, Emily is now forced to rely on taxis — an alternative that she soon abandons as both frustrating and expensive. Visiting Arlene in the hospital, Emily is relieved to learn that her friend had merely fainted because of low blood sugar (although she now has some dramatic stitches on her forehead).

Emily ponders her predicament. Arlene’s poor vision makes her a dangerous driver; also Emily finds that there are places that she wants to go alone: her husband’s grave, for example. Against the advice of family and friends, she buys a new car (a Subaru) and ventures out into the world again. 

Although Emily, Alone is essentially a warm, and often humorous account of an elderly woman’s rational acceptance of her own mortality, Emily’s daily life has occasional moments that are heartbreaking and poignant. Certainly, she finds much to enjoy in life: the classical music station on her radio that continues to play her favorite Bach and Vivaldi; her garden and the annual return of flowers which she tends with a zealot’s devotion.

Then, there are the gratifying annual events: the spring flower show which she and Arlene attend each year; the museum, and a Van Goth exhibit; the new symphonic season with a Mozart program.

However, in counterpoint to this annual ritual, there are the “family events” — Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners; the yearly trip to a cabin called “Chautauqua” and the visits of children and grandchildren. All of these events are fraught with frustration and disappointments, such as an alienated daughter with a drinking problem; sons who seem reluctant to return home since they are married and have conflicting obligations...and the grandchildren who are bored by the whole affair.

Beneath it all runs Emily’s rueful acceptance that each event may be “the last time” she will see the people that she loves.

There is also this. As the seasons change, as winter gives way to spring (“This may be the last spring” thinks Emily), a goodly portion of Emily’s thoughts are colored by guilt, regret and anxiety. She remembers the thoughtless and cruel comments that she made to her own mother and finds contained in her own daughter’s arrogant and bitter pronouncements the same anger that had once been her own.

Like all mothers who find themselves alone, there are days when Emily has little to do except revisit old grievances and imagined slights from her family. The receiving and sending of Christmas cards becomes a daunting activity in which Emily equates a late (or never sent) card as indicative of a relative’s indifference.

Funerals of old friends acquire profound significance in terms of flowers, musical selections and seating. Emily carefully plans her own service. The writing of her will and the distribution of her estate becomes a topic for discussion with her children, who (thinks Emily) respond with indifference. Like most mothers, Emily suffers all of these imagined insults with stoic silence....until she is safely at home.

No doubt, many readers will find Emily to be an all-too-familiar figure, but they are also likely to admire her, as she drives her new car to destinations she had once thought beyond her reach. Her relationship with the delightful Rusty, her decrepit dog, is both tender and comical, since Emily keeps up a colorful monologue directed at the failing canine, filled with comical nick-names.

He is Doo-fus when he is awkward and Tubby when he gains weight. His owner worries that she may out live him, but dotes on him as though he were her child. She sympathizes with him regarding his bouts of flatulence, but admits that she has similar failings herself. Each day, when a rogue squirrel comes to raid the bird feeder, Emily opens the back door and urges Rusty to attack. “Sic ‘em, Rusty.” The squirrel is gone before Rusty gets to the feeder, but Emily always assures him, “You almost got him, that time!”

Her relationship with her “once-each-week” housekeeper, Betty, is often comical as they compare notes on food, relatives, dieting and politics. However, the best exchanges are between Emily and Arlene, who are two old friends that are totally mismatched. Arlene is a retired teacher, who loves soap operas and often distresses Emily with her love of pop music and bad art. Yet the two are devoted and familiar figures in their town, dining weekly at the Eat ‘n Park and shopping for blueberry muffins at Giant Eagle. Regardless of who is the chauffeur, they attend church, funerals and art shows together.

As Emily enjoys her new car, she seems to be gathering nerve for “a long drive.” In time, we learn that the destination is Emily’s hometown, Kersey, Penn., a place she had once vowed she would never see again. Perhaps it is the “summing up” of her life that prompts Emily to finally pack a pair of cosmos (potted flowers) into the Subaru and set out for a backwater town and an old cemetery where she will spend hours digging the dry baked dirt at her parent’s tombstones. It was something that needed to be done.

Perhaps it is only with this final act of acknowledging her origins, that Emily can return home to sit quietly in a window above her garden, with a glass of wine and the music of Albinoni and Vivaldi playing softly. Her obligations and duties have all been fulfilled now. Nothing to do now but wait.

Emily, Alone by Stewart O’nan. Penguin Books, 2011. 255 pages.

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

— “Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake

The stanza above, from William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence” serves as an apt introduction to Robert Morgan’s latest collection of poetry. Here, the reader will find a catalog of vivid images from the natural world: a spider’s web spangled with dew drops; mountain pools pierced by sun beams; a wind-blown thistle and the husk of a jar fly — all transformed by Morgan’s elegant words — words which have the power to render these images “numinous” (possessing a religious or spiritual quality).

In conjunction with Morgan’s skill in capturing vibrant images is his ability to describe those images with magical language. For example, the title of this collection, Terroir, is a word (French in origin) used to denote the special characteristics that geography, geology and climate bestow upon crops and/or produce. Just as the quality of a vintage wine may be determined by the combined effects of a particular region’s rivers, the mineral content of the soil and the length of the growing season, Morgan suggests a parallel in the natural world of Appalachia. In effect, the inhabitants of the coves and ridges of the Southern Highlands are what they are because of the same factors. We (and all living things) are molded and shaped by the same forces that might render/produce something original ... a rare wine with its unique taste or a mountain family, surviving against all odds and steeped in tradition.

Terroir contains a number of recurring themes: rituals, folk beliefs, superstitions and the subtle and orderly design of the natural world.

“October Crossing” celebrates the annual orange and black, woolly worm migration which, in mountain folklore will determine how hard the winter will be. However, in Morgan’s imaginative description, this events merges with classical mythology. The woolly worms migration must cross a highway “like a hard Styx or Jordan” to reach the refuge of the woods. In “Apple Howling,” there is a comparison of the Anglo-Saxon “come forth” ritual in apple orchards (beseeching the trees to produce a generous crop), to the “come, butter, come” incantations that my own grandmother chanted to transform clabbered milk to butter. “Singing to the Corn” recounts yet another ritual to encourage fertility and “Immune” celebrates an old superstition about going barefoot in the first snowfall as a means of preventing winter ailments.

Beneath all of these poems, like a quiet, but ever-present stream, is a series of affirmative verses regarding Nature’s “silent design.” “Loaves and Fishes” celebrates the slow decay of a deer on the highway, noting the process by which every bit of flesh  “is sorted, hauled/ away by scavenging coyotes,/ by maggots, worms, bacteria, /each bite sent to its proper place/ to feed the needy multitudes.” “Translation” finds a striking example of rebirth in the way that trees die “and lean into the arms/ of neighbors” where they gradually disintegrate and “... eed the the roots/ of soaring youth.”

There are also frequent allusions to Nature’s tendency to “mimic” cosmic design. For example, the sprouts of potatoes struggling toward the light in “Homesickness” resembles genetic memory struggling “across the gulf of history.” In another poem, In “Country of the Sun,” Morgan finds a poignant parallel in the struggles of a neighbor stricken with an eye cancer who moves down a road in the sunlight of a spring day with the same yearning towards the light. In “The Big One,” the explosion of seeds from a winter thistle resembles that outward rush of matter that created the universe. Again, in “Lone Eagle,” the fall of snow flakes in a pine forest suggests “a ticker tape parade” witnessed by “snow bird, mouse and solo wren.” The spiraling flight of sulfur butterflies in “Convocation,” suggest the “swing and rise” of planets and “far quasar.” 

Many of Morgan’s most affecting poems describe an embattled natural world where corrupting forces contaminate beauty. “Brownfield” describes a field filled with “industrial swill,” tatters of asbestos and rusting nails, styrofoam, grease and garbage bags; yet even here, Nature struggles stubbornly to reassert itself with a thriving patch of ironweed. In “Expulsion” Morgan compares humanity’s withdrawal from polluted tracts of land to the loss of Eden. We are forced to leave because our eyes are “swollen red” by a corrupting dust. Yet, even here, the stubborn persistence of “Poison Oak” demonstrates Nature’s survival instinct “that will cross a meadow” to claim a spot at the base of a tree.

My favorite poem in this collection is “Go Gentle,” a reasoned rebuff to the poet, Dylan Thomas who is remembered for his advice to the elderly: “rage against the dying of the light.” For Morgan, such a recommendation seems a bit melodramaic. After witnessing the death of relatives and friends, Morgan concludes that both those who watch and those who die “will plead for nothing but the right/ and gentle passage of the night.” There seems little point in delivering a death rant.

This is a gratifying collection.  Although Robert Morgan is attracting national attention for his novels and historic biographies, I feel that his greatest strength lies in his poetry.

Terroir by Robert Morgan. Penguin Books, 2011. 95 pages.

This novel contains an endorsement from the late William Gay that tweaked my interest. I immediately bought the book. Gay says, “The Devil All the Time hits you like a telegram from Hell slid under your door at three o’clock in the morning.” Another review concluded that reading Pollock’s novel was like “reading Flannery O”Conner without the Catholicism.” What we have here, then, is the existential landscape of the “Southern Gothic” joined with the mindless brutality of “Natural Born Killers.” If you are a reader who looks for novels that are spiritually uplifting and are designed to reflect hope and redemptive themes, then you should avoid The Devil All the Time as if its pages were impregnated with the Ebola virus.

Pollock’s characters are often terrifying; other times, they possess a pathetic innocence ... the kind that renders them hapless victims. Here are some of his most arresting and memorable characters: The duo, Brother Roy Lafferty and Brother Theodore Daniels, spread the word of God in the Coal Creek Holiness Church Sanctified in Meade, Ohio (circa l950s). The Rev. Roy keeps the attention of his audience by throwing handfuls of poisonous spiders into the congregation.  Brother Theodore, confined to a wheelchair since he swallowed a dose of strychnine in one of the Rev’s Roy’s revivals, plays the guitar. Alarmed by a steady decrease in his congregation, the Rev. Roy decides to promote himself with a miracle ... raising the dead. Brother Theodore suggests that Roy should kill his new wife and “bring her back.” The Rev. Roy does just that ... or tries. The religious duo buries the dead girl and depart ... allegedly for Mexico.

Willard Russell, a psychologically scarred WWII veteran, returns to Meade after the war, marries and struggles to make a life for his wife and son, Arvin. When his wife gets cancer, Willard launches an impassioned appeal to God to save his wife. At first he conducts marathon praying sessions at a “prayer log” in the woods, but gradually he begins to bring sacrifices to the prayer log — rabbits, squirrels, butchered hunting dogs ... all of which he hangs on wooden crosses or from the branches of trees. When his wife’s condition grows worse, he decides to bring a human sacrifice to his prayer log and murders his landlord, an unpleasant, greedy lawyer (who has offered to give Willard his rented shack if Willard will kill the lawyer’s unfaithful wife and her lover).

When his wife dies, the distraught Willard decides to make the ultimate sacrifice, cuts his own throat and leaves behind a 9-year-old, Arvin, who becomes the central character in The Devil All the Time. When Arvin leads the local sheriff, Lee Bodecker, to the prayer log and his father’s body, the bewildered law officer stares at the decaying sacrifices hanging in the trees and asks the boy, “What the hell is this?”

“A prayer log,” says Arvin, “but it don’t work.”

Then there are Carl and Sandy, a grotesque couple who have a secret life as “self-styled serial murderers.” On weekends, they troll the side roads of surrounding states, looking for “models” ... young hitchhikers. Sandy is the “bait,” who seduces the young men; Carl is the photographer who records the encounter and then tortures and murders the victims. For Carl, all of this is controlled by some spiritual and/or religious force that directs him to his victims by secret signs and clues. During the week, the couple operates a tavern in Meade where Sandy’s brother is Sheriff Bodecker.

At this point, approximately one-third of the way into this surreal and hypnotic novel, when the narrative is acquiring the rocking speed of a souped-up roadster with a gutted muffler, it’s time to cease revealing the action and make a few observations on this novel’s merits. Instead of launching an all-out attack on the “shameful depiction of Southern degeneracy,” I feel constrained to note that this is a brilliant novel. In some ways it is similar to the cult film, “Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus,” by Andrew Douglas, which presents the rural South as a place in which “Christ, mysticism, superstition and the yin-yang forces of the sacred and the profane combine, creating a delicate blend of the real and the unreal, the known and the unknown.”

For those who live in the rural south, especially in the impoverished and remote areas, there are only two choices. “Choose Jesus or choose hell.” Readers who are familiar with the geography will readily recognize Meade, Ohio, since it has hundreds of clones. “A little paper mill town ... that smelled like rotten eggs. Strangers complained about the stench, but the locals like to brag about the sweet smell of money.” As Pollock catalogs Meade’s recreational opportunities, which seem to be limited to attending church, visiting the funeral home or consuming a case of beer on the back porch, many readers may feel an eerie sense of the familiar. Pollock moves with confidence through swamps, “school bus-littered junkyards and off-the-highway bars where drugs, sex and Pentecostal passions freely mingle.”

This is the natural habitat of Pollock’s characters. They are shaped and molded by dark, immutable forces which compel them to either go on mystical quests or murderous rampages. It is a place where the devout and the demonic constantly intersect. Billboards and rustic signs proclaim “Jesus is Coming,” and the local denizens readily admit either a reverence for heaven or a fondness for hell.

It may well be that many potential readers will be repulsed by the violence and otherworldly spirituality of The Devil All the Time. However, if a few thoughtful souls find a disturbing power in these stories of death and heartbreak, I would like to urge you to type this magical mantra into your Google: “Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.”  Spend a little time with Andrew Douglas on YouTube in the company of Harry Crews, Tin Finger and a collection of deranged misfits who have looked into the core of their being and found both lyric beauty and terror.

The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock. Doubleday, 2012. 251 pages.

There’s a meeting this week to determine the future of “The Liar’s Bench.” This is a two-year-old throwback of sorts to the old-timey variety show, a gathering of local talent for the enjoyment, amusement and, on occasion, the edification of audiences.

The Liar’s Bench showcases authentic Southern Appalachian culture. None of your hee-haw tricks are found and exploited on this stage. Just good music, interesting and funny stories, and dramatic renderings of life as it really once was, and often is today, here in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

Lack of money, however, that too-frequent destroyer of art, music, literature and dreams, is threatening to bring The Liar’s Bench to an end. Performances featuring some of the region’s best entertainers will continue through March and maybe into April at the Mountain Heritage Center on the campus of Western Carolina University and elsewhere in the region.

But after that? Well, the situation isn’t pretty.

“Finances might kill The Liar’s Bench,” founder Gary Carden said. “It has to be able to sustain itself. I’ve depended on the good will of people — really, taken advantage of them — for far too long. We hope we’ll do this again, but it’s not certain. Our future is none too secure.”

A show from The Liar’s Bench this past October was featured on the syndicated television program “Life in the Carolinas.” That’s hitting the big-time for any local talent venue. But, no matter how gratifying to those involved, even Carolinas-wide recognition doesn’t pay the bills.

Carden said the musicians and other performers need compensation to, in turn, sustain themselves and their families financially. He remains hopeful that a plan can be formulated to accomplish both those goals: saving The Liar’s Bench and paying the performers. But exactly what form that plan might take, and who precisely will develop this save-the-day plan, remain unsolved mysteries.

Crowd shrinks with ticket sales

The stage at the Mountain Heritage Center is small and intimate. The performance hall seems a perfect venue for this type of show, which generally features one entertainer at a time. The acoustics are good, the lighting well placed, the performers nicely rehearsed.

A couple of regulars for The Liar’s Bench weren’t here on this night, poet and musician Barbara Duncan and musician Eric Young. But Carden, Cherokee storyteller Lloyd Arneach, claw-hammer guitar specialist Paul Iarussi and vocalist/musician William Ritter (the “boy genius” as Carden dubs this exceptional talent) were ready to take the stage. So were guitarist and singer Ken Beck, vocalist/musician Karen Barnes and dramatic monologist Tom Dewees, who would perform Carden’s dramatic work, “Coy.”

On this night, un-typically, admission of $10 per person was collected at the door as part of an attempt to try to stem the tide of financial insolvency. Admission was charged at a show earlier in February, too. Usually the show is free; the crowd tonight was considerably smaller than usual.

Carden, as ringmaster, was nattily attired in a white dress shirt and black pants and black vest. This was Carden in his native element, in full throat and happily on stage even when down in the audience hugging those he knew and shaking hands with those he didn’t.

Carden said he originally conceived of The Liar’s Bench as an opportunity to tell stories.

SEE ALSO: Sylva’s Gary Carden a true Southern Appalachian original

“When local musicians and poets agreed to perform, I realized that perhaps The Liar’s Bench was an opportunity to do more than merely entertain the audience,” he said. “Gradually, the show has become a means of showcasing Appalachian culture and presenting it with integrity and authenticity.”

If the show goes under another project now in the works could be lost, too:  The Liar’s Bench and the Mountain Heritage Center have been developing a series of programs called “The Balsam Chronicles.” The project is based on the history and folklore of the region.

A future training venue

Arneach is one of the most notable performers participating in The Liar’s Bench. On this night he told two stories, one Cherokee in origin and the other about a veteran of military service. Arneach is an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and he served in the Vietnam War.

A tall, barrel-chested man, Arneach quickly captivated the audience with his booming, yet seductive, storytelling voice. His stories are relatively short, maybe 10 minutes in length tops, with defined beginnings, middles and ends. The applause when he finished was sustained and appreciative.

Arneach, in turn, is grateful to this venue and the additional people it allows him and the other entertainers involved to reach. He said that the growth of The Liar’s Bench in popularity over the past two years has been phenomenal to participate in and to watch.

“To get to see this type of diverse talent in one setting is unique to this area,” Arneach said.

He recalled the early shows at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. The Liar’s Bench rapidly outgrew the small room available there and moved through other venues before landing in its current home here at the Mountain Heritage Center. Until this month and the two attempts to fund the show by charging admission, the audience had been standing room-only, Arneach said.

The Cherokee storyteller considers The Liar’s Bench, if the performance venue can survive this financial crisis, as a potential training ground for young talent in WNC. He talked of the need to train future Cherokee storytellers because the youngest of the current group, which of course includes Arneach, is a woman in her 50s. Arneach worries the ancient stories could be lost without direct encouragement of younger Cherokee to take them up.

The Liar’s Bench could serve as a place for teaching this next generation of entertainers how to work with an audience, how to read an audience and general stagecraft tips “that I had to learn the hard-knock way,” Arneach said. “This would give them an opportunity to work on stage and learn what it’s like.”

Gary Carden didn’t realize he had an audience. He was coaching Lara Chew through a rehearsal of “Mother Jones,” a play he wrote three years ago about the famous American labor and community organizer. “Mother Jones” will be on stage for audiences in April.

Carden was seated in the front row of a small performance hall at the Mountain Heritage Center at Western Carolina University.

Chew attends the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Macon County, as does Carden, at least when he feels able to drive over the Cowee mountain range. Chew has spent many insomnia-ridden nights memorizing this more than hour-long dramatic monologue. For the most part, with only an occasional stumble, Chew’s rendition of Carden’s work sounded smooth and true. He mostly listened in silence.

Finally Carden interrupted.

“Drag that out right there,” he urged her. “Because that’s your theme.”

Chew nodded in understanding. She repeated the section again with more emphasis. Carden smiled appreciatively, apparently pleased with the result and the responsiveness to his suggestion.

Chew later discussed working with Carden, a Sylva native who has established himself as one of this region’s most-recognizable, best-known and best-loved wordsmiths through his storytelling, plays and short stories.

At the same time, Carden has earned a reputation for being, well, mercurial.

“He speaks his mind, and I appreciate that,” Chew said. “He wrote ‘Mother Jones,’ so he knows how it’s supposed to go. Yes, he’s easy to work with.”

Carden responded, “No, I’m not. I admit that readily.”

Then Carden added a self-assessment that he can “become irrational” if something blocks what he’s trying to accomplish artistically.

“Yeah, I reluctantly admit that I am a pain in the ass. I have been called a curmudgeon, a damned old geezer, ‘Gary Contrary,’ and a waitress in a local cafe calls me ‘Mr. Grumpy.’ I wish everybody loved me, and as one of my best friends tells me, ‘Gary, you are digging your grave with your tongue.’ But so be it. If you passionately love something and want to accomplish something meaningful, you are going to have to be a pain in the ass,” he said.

Carden is nothing if not complex. He’s a mix of a man, one who can be difficult but is equally capable of great love, generosity and tenderness; and of seemingly endless patience, as on this day with Chew.

Forever abandoned

How does a man become what and who he is? Carden has spent almost a lifetime, 77 years now, trying to answer that question through written and spoken words. He has told his story, in one form or another, a million times. The characters change, the context changes, the task remains unchanged: Who am I?

The facts that make up Carden’s life history aren’t easy. His father was murdered. His mother left for Knoxville, Tenn., ostensibly for “business school,” Carden said he was told.  

“I grew up thinking that Knoxville was some magic place where my mother lived and I ran away several times, at the ages of 3 and 4, going to Knoxville,” he said. “On one occasion, I was taken to Knoxville. I now think my grandparents intended to leave me … but something miscarried, and they brought me back home with no explanation.”  

Later, Carden learned that his mother had married a man she’d met in Sylva who had told her that if she came to Knoxville — without the boy — they would get married.  

“My grandmother used to discipline me by taking me out on the front porch and pointing to a worn place near the banisters,” Carden said. “‘There is where she left you,’ she would say. ‘Now, I took you when nobody wanted you and you owe me.’”

These experiences profoundly shaped the future writer.

SEE ALSO: Shortage of dollars threatens to kill popular local show, ‘The Liar’s Bench’

“Even when you are 77 you are still an abandoned child,” Carden said.

Dot Jackson is a longtime friend of Carden’s and an unabashed fan of his work. A former reporter who was twice nominated for Pulitzer Prizes for work at The Charlotte Observer and at The Greenville News, Jackson has authored several nonfiction books. Her novel Refuge was published in 2006.

“Gary has made the most of a painful early childhood,” Jackson said. “As did Pat Conroy with his quick-fisted daddy, Gary has trademarked the imperfect lot of the orphaned toddler. Fact is, he’s done it with such alternating heart, pathos and comedy that like most everything else he does, it’s pretty much a work of genius. And unforgettable.

“I remember realizing, as I read more of the stuff he was writing, that he was exceptionally good. Not the kind of  ‘good’ that was learned, but the kind that is once-in-a-blue-moon born.”

Jackson remembers a young Carden expressing a possible desire to work in newspapers, where she spent most of her writing career. The South Carolina resident said being a reporter ensured her a decent living and the ability to write.

“But there was, involved in it, the business of give and take, learning to get all heated up about the fire at the trash dump, or ‘The Sewer Commission met on Thursday and took no action’ … This was not Gary’s world, and mercy kept him out of it,” she said. “He lived in a colorful, sweet-and-sour world of imagination. There were rainbows and clucking chickens and Cherokee bad words and sanctimonious uncles, and the stench of tanning hides that would have wrinkled a late-night editor’s brow — though the world would probably have loved it. Would have, and does.”

Wherefore ability?

Creative ability is a mysterious gift to comprehend anytime, why some people have it and others don’t. So how to decipher the wellsprings of Carden’s vast talent? That mystery is even more unfathomable in his case than others. Because Carden’s family was not what you’d describe as the artistic set, with the possibility, perhaps, of his father.

“He was exceptionally gifted as a musician and was reported to be able to play any musical instrument and often composed melodies off the top of his head, a talent that both awed and disturbed my grandfather. He would sometimes ask him to repeat a melody that he had just played and my father would reply, ‘I can’t, Daddy. It’s gone,’” Carden said.

The remainder of his family Carden described as “the salt of the earth.” Which means not visibly artistic, or interested in the arts, or interested in helping Carden explore his growing passion for literature.  

“No one read except my grandmother, who read Mary Rinehart novels and went to the movies each year to see ‘Trail of the Lonesome Pine’ and ‘How Green Was My Valley,’” Carden said. “There was a single bookcase in the house and it was filled with religious tracts, songbooks and They Were Expendable, a book about World War II.”

Carden was a lonely child. He had few playmates. When pressed, he’ll admit to being an outcast within his own family. Like countless isolated children have done before and since, Carden found what solace and comfort he could in books.

“I went to the barn and read and read and read,” Carden said.

When not reading, Carden listened to a small radio his uncle gave him, tuning into radio shows broadcast from the big city of Chicago straight into little Sylva. He memorized songs. He enjoyed comic books.

Eventually, and critically important to his development as a writer and storyteller, Carden discovered the novels of Thomas Wolfe. He felt in his bones the music of the Asheville writer’s “poetic language.” Carden remains as passionate today about Wolfe’s work as when he first read the novelist.

In his book Mason Jars in the Flood, Carden through one character noted that Wolfe wrote “about loneliness and loss,” the great contrapuntal themes that sound in Carden’s own life. The language, he wrote, was beautiful: “the words booming like the organ at First Methodist. I found myself responding to the sound rather than the meaning. ‘Lost! Lost!’”

Carden taught about Wolfe at one time to elderhostel students. Carden quit because, he said, it upset him when they repeated all of the “hackneyed criticisms” of Wolfe, such as “he over-wrote.”

Working on impulse

You can thank Sylva’s Fire Department for Carden’s writing career. He started writing in the ninth grade when the fire department sponsored a contest.

“I won it by counting all the matches in a box and estimated the damage I could do with them,” Carden said. “I got a trophy that immediately turned green. The next event was another contest. I won six tickets to the first production of ‘Unto These Hills,’ and had no one to give them to since my family was uninterested.”

His first stories, as Carden tells it to audiences, were relayed to “my grandfather’s chickens in a dark chicken house when I was 6 years old. My audience wasn’t attentive and tended to get hysterical during the dramatic parts.”  

Carden had polio and sclerosis. This worked to his advantage when it came time for college: He attended WCU on a vocational rehabilitation scholarship.

“There is no way I would have been able to go otherwise,” Carden said.

Carden graduated with a degree to teach English, which he did for 15 years in Georgia and North Carolina before returning to WCU for his masters in English and drama. The university later awarded him an honorary doctorate.

Carden then wrote grants for 15 years for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

“It was easy to do and the money rolled in,” Carden said. “I’m not bragging because Washington was eager to fund Native Americans.”

Then Carden went deaf. He continued on with Cherokee until, Carden said, “it became embarrassing.”

“I had problems because I misunderstood what was said by contacts in Washington. Once, I remember that a consultant said, ‘How do you justify Mead?’ That is what I heard. I said I didn’t see what Mead had to do with anything, Mead being the paper plant in Sylva that was a major polluter at the time. We ended up yelling at each other until I realized that he had said, ‘How do you justify need?’ That is just a tiny example of what became a daily problem,” Carden said.

His deafness propelled him directly into fulltime storytelling.

“I was fine as long as I got to do all of the talking,” Carden said. “Then I started teaching elderhostel and most of the elderhostel sponsors were tolerant of my deafness.”

When talking or listening to people, Carden described his attempt to turn up the volume by turning his two hearing aids on full blast. Even then, catching what was said was multiple choices and simply guessing, Carden said.

“Sometimes I’d guess right, sometimes wrong,” he said.

A girlfriend of old paid three years ago for a cochlear implant despite, Carden admitted, an inability of the two to “talk for 30 minutes without shouting at each other.”

The gift transformed his life. Able to hear, his ability to function creatively exploded again into full bloom.

Writers work in different ways, some methodically and others more impulsively. Carden is in the latter camp. He often writes starting at 3 a.m., taking advantage of insomnia to do work more or less “on impulse.”

“Sometimes ideas bother me for months and even years before I finally break down and write about it,” Carden said.

Carden said he started out writing poetry, which he described without elaboration as “a terrible mistake.”

“I did a few inept short stories and finally gave it up until I wrote Mason Jars in the Flood,” he said.

Carden has written eight plays. Asked why has found drama so satisfying a form to work in, Carden explained there is something fundamental about being on stage that helps fill the hole of loneliness.

“When you are on there, people pay attention to you,” Carden said. “You get on that stage and people look at you, and you’re understood until the next day. In my mind it disproved my suspicion that I was worthless ... I was proving that I was ‘worth something.’ The problem is, this quick fix does not last. Within a day or so, the sense of being worth something fades, and you have to start looking for an opportunity to do it again.”  

Carden has in the past decade started receiving long-due recognition. Awards and general accolades for his lifetime of work have started flowing in, pleasing those who have watched him labor for so many years. Among them is Joyce Moore, the retired owner of the popular City Lights Bookstore in Sylva. She was at a recent production of Carden’s “The Liar’s Bench” with husband, Allen.

“I’m glad Gary finally seems to be hitting the big time after all the years,” Moore said. “He’s an incredibly talented person.”

Mason Jars in the Flood won the Book of the Year Award in 2001 from the Appalachian Writers Association. Two of Carden’s dramatic monologues, “Prince of Dark Corners” and “Nance Dude” have been filmed and appeared on PBS and the Discover Channel. He’s a 2006 winner of a Brown-Hudson Award in Folklore.

Carden has become a speaker at various literary events, including an upcoming appearance April 13-14 at the Carolina Literary Festival in Wadesville, where he’ll talk about storytelling becoming drama.

Works by Gary Carden

• “The Uktena,” a Cherokee “mime” play.

• A series of Cherokee plays based on the Nunnihi, street chiefs, old myths.

• “The Raindrop Waltz,” an autobiographical play that has received national exposure.

• “Mason Jars in the Flood,” an award-winning book of short stories.

• “Land’s End,” three monologues presented as a complete play.

• “Belled Buzzards, Hucksters and Grieving Specters,” a play written with Nina Anderson.

• “Papa’s Angels,” written with Colin Wilcox. Made into a movie.

• “Nance Dude,” filmed with Elizabeth Westall.

• “Prince of Dark Corners” made into a movie for PBS and Discovery Channel.

• “The Bright Forever,” a play.

• “A Sunday Evening in Webster,” a monologue.

• “Signs and Wonders,” a play. Premiered in Highlands last year.

• “Coy,” a play that was originally a part of the trilogy “Land’s End.”

• “Mother Jones,” a monologue.

• “Outlander,” a full-length play about Horace Kephart and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It will have a full musical score and will be performed this June at the Parkway Playhouse in Burnsville.

Fifteen-year-old Charlie Thompson is always hungry. Luckily, he is blessed with a high metabolism rate, so the excessive amounts of junk food and Spagetti-Os that he consumes does not alter his weight. Charlie rationalizes that he wants to gain weight anyway, so he can play football, but there is considerable evidence that his hunger is caused by deeper needs: the need to be loved, valued, respected ... perhaps even given a safe home, companionship and a sense of security.

Essentially, Charlie is an abandoned child. After his mother left and never returned, Charlie’s life became increasingly unstable. His father, an irresponsible provider and womanizer, often left his son alone for long periods with a few dollars and no groceries. Despite his growing anxiety about his father long absences, Charlie treasures the few good memories of fishing trips and camping.

However, motivated by hunger and boredom, the boy finally finds his way to a dilapidated racetrack where he manages to find work cleaning stalls and grooming the horses. His employer is a repugnant man named Del Montgomery, and although he occasionally gives Charlie money, the amount is scant and unpredictable. Drunken, irritable and given to obscene diatribes against everything from women, horses and debtors, Del frequently abuses and demeans the boy.

When Charlie’s father is murdered by an irate husband (a huge Samoan), the frightened boy quickly becomes both desperate and paranoid. Without a home, he tries to live at the racetrack, hiding his meager belongings in the tack-room. He begins to steal groceries (mostly canned soup and bread) and develops a talent for stealing uneaten food left by customers in fast-food establishments. Although he is often caught, he manages to evade social workers. After Del discovers that he is living at the racetrack, he refuses to pay the boy. Becoming increasingly desperate, Charlie begins to break into local homes when the residents are at work. He takes food from the refrigerators, takes a shower, and after washing his clothes, he cleans the house and sneaks away.

In those brief moments when Charlie is warm and well fed, he often dreams about an aunt ... Margy Thompson, his father’s sister. In her visits to the home, she had taken a interest in Charlie, taking him to movies and buying him clothes. After a bitter argument with his father, she had never returned, but Charlie fantasized about her, dreaming that she lived alone somewhere in Wyoming and she would take him in and perhaps he would enroll in the local high school and play football. However, Charlie’s dreams are also haunted by nightmares of the huge Samoan who killed his father.

The heart of this marvelous novel concerns the relationship between Charlie and a quarter-horse named Lean on Pete. Although tending to dozens of horses, Charlie is drawn to the horse because he identifies with it.

Charlie quickly learns that race horses are only well-treated when they are winners. Lean on Me is a winner, but like Charlie, he is nervous and “easily spooked.” When Lean on Pete develops a nervous condition that could easily lead to his being killed ... like other unproductive horses that are not “earning their keep,” Charlie becomes obsessed with a plan for saving the horse. When Del orders the boy to load Lean on Me for a trip to track for another buyer,” Charlie does the only thing he can. He steals Lean on Me.

At this point, Lean on Pete becomes a “journey novel.” Charlie and his horse begin a trek from Portland to Rock Springs, Wyoming. It is a daunting trip, fraught with peril, and Charlie seems destined to encounter every cruel and unsavory aspect of being homeless. Predators abound, and long after this hapless horse has ceased to be Charlie’s responsibility, Charlie travels through deserts, slums, youth centers and the dark streets where he is often beaten, frequently frightened and always hungry.

Despite the fact that this gentle boy rarely encounters kindness and sympathy, it does happen. Strangers feed him, give him a place to sleep, and give him money. What is most significant about these “random acts of kindness,” is the fact that they exist at all. Charlie Thompson’s grim journey seems to be designed to make him a hardened criminal, for along the way, survival requires that he learn to lie, cheat and even bludgeon a psychotic attacker with a car jack. Time and time again, he encounters callous indifference and cruelty; yet when kindness is offered, he invariably accepts it with gratitude.

The author, Willy Vlautin, is being hailed as a new Steinbeck and/or a disciple of Ramond Carver. These comparisons are valid since Vlautin’s writing reflects the same compassion for the powerless — the people in American society who are defenseless. Vlautin is mindful of the tragic plight of the homeless, of abandoned children and abused women. There is some talk of making Lean on Pete required reading in those levels of society where Charlie Thompson’s brothers and sisters live. There are countless thousands who, unlike Charlie, do not have an Aunt Margy who will rescue them from those dark streets.

In conclusion, is should be noted that Lean on Pete contains a graphic description of Portland Meadows, a dilapidated racetrack in Oregon that refuses to close. Over the years, it has become a gathering place for the rejects of the racing world. Designed for 10,000 people, this track continues to operate with a regular audience of less than one thousand. There are over 1,000 horses at Portland Meadows, but they are not the pampered winners at other tracks.

Vlautin’s description of this anachronism is painfully accurate for the Meadows embodies a generous number of denizens like Del Montgomery who treat their horses and employees with abuse and cruelty. Doubtless, there are jockeys and groomers as benighted as those in Lean on Pete. However, as the Steinbeck quote accompanying this review, that is not the total picture. Sometimes, beneath the rusty exterior, Charlie has brief encounters with human compassion.

Lean on Pete by Willy Vlautin. Harper, 2010. 277 pages

Thursday. Throughout this anguished and gripping tale, this day of the week, Thursday” is usually italicized, suggesting that it has some special (and possibly sinister) significance. Specifically, it is the day that Eva Khatchadourian’s son, Kevin (two days shy of his 16th birthday) will kill 11 people. Taking the form of an epistolary novel, We Need to Talk about Kevin consists of a series of letters written by Eva to her “estranged” husband, Franklin. In essence, these letters represent Eva’s painful attempts to discover the reasons for her son’s decision to murder nine of his classmates and two adults. It is a daunting task.

By turns witty, arrogant, defiant and defensive, Eva records the details of her life in an attempt to find clues ... something that answers the provocative question, why? Where did it begin? Why did her morose and inverted son plan and stage a massacre in a school gymnasium? As she slowly sifts the chronology of her life ... the details of her marriage, revisiting every major and minor conflict, she searches for the flaw that led to disaster.

As Eva recounts her successful career as writer of a travel book series entitled “A Wing and a Prayer” — books which provided guidance to “economically disadvantaged travelers” — Eva recalls the factors attending her decision to have a baby: how she became increasingly aware of her biological clock (she is in her late 30s) and develops a devious scheme to have a baby despite Franklin’s ambivalence about parenthood. However, since they are wealthy, both would-be parents are confident that they can provide an exceptionally stable environment for a child. Eva plans Kevin’s birth as carefully as she orchestrates and markets her travel books.

However, there are disquieting factors from the beginning. Kevin rejects his mother’s breast and will only accept formula. Eventually, he also rejects toilet training and wears diapers (which he soils at an alarming rate) until he is nearly 6. Babysitters and care-takers quit. Daycare teachers complain of Kevin’s “asocial behavior,” and though he resists learning to talk, he perfects an irritating ability to “mimic” his mother’s speech in a sing-song voice — “Nah, neh, nah, nah, Neh, naw ...”— a talent that she suspects is a calculated attempt to anger her. Distressed by Kevin’s listless manner and his growing hostility to others, Eva begins to wonder if it is possible for a child to actually resent being born. Certainly, there seems to be little in life that pleases the sullen boy. By the time he begins school, he has already developed a bored and indifferent response to all attempts to elicit his interest: “Whatever,” he says, giving the response of the jaded and bored teenager.

Gradually, Eva realizes that instead of suffering from “attention deficient” or any of a host of mental impairments, Kevin is very intelligent. In addition, his indifference to his school, family, clothing and music is genuine. Ruefully, Eva notes that she had her son tested for Downs Syndrome, but “did not have him tested for malice, spiteful indifference, or for congenital meanness.” In time, it becomes evident that Kevin sees the world as “pointless,” viewing it with either hostility or repugnance.

However, he has an ominous fascination for the rash of school shootings that are happening with alarming frequency. He becomes a kind of authority on each incident. He can list all of the “vital statistics” — age of shooter, number of victims, choice of weapons, etc. — smugly noting that he is contemptuous of suicides and killers who leave elaborate notes. Kevin prefers motives that are “unknown, hidden and/or mysterious.”

In conjunction with Kevin’s growing antipathy for the world around him, Eva is alarmed by a series of “accidents” and disturbing events in which her son may have played a part. Kevin’s sister is blinded in one eye as a result of a suspicious accident; an unknown person plants incriminating evidence in the lockers of popular students, evidenced that suggests that they are budding terrorists or racists. Kevin acquires a “friend” who appears to be as maladjusted as he is, and the two boys create a plot that involves accusing a teacher of sexual improprieties; the local police show up inquiring about an alleged “prank.” Someone is dropping rocks and bricks from an overpass onto motorists.

Unfortunately, Eva’s growing distress is not shared by Franklin. What she sees as danger signals, Franklin sees as the robust vitality of a growing boy. When Eva confronts Kevin, Franklin invariably springs to his defense and assumes the role of a tolerant father who encourages his son’s interest in hunting by buying him an assortment of weapons ... including a crossbow. Franklin also promotes a series of father-son activities such as camping and visiting historic sites … including Vietnam. Perhaps the most poignant aspect of this relationship is the growing evidence that Kevin despises his father and will create a special punishment for him.

As the fateful date approaches — April 8, 1999 — Eva becomes increasingly anxious. Later, she will recall in detail the last family breakfast. Especially noteworthy is Kevin’s remark about his mother’s affectionate goodbye to Celia, the sweet and timid daughter. “Sure you don’t want to say goodbye to Celia one more time?” In the years to come, she will wonder if Kevin was hinting about the unthinkable acts that were to come.

We Need to Talk about Kevin will probably become a celebrated and hotly-debated book in the coming months. The fact that there is already a movie version in the theaters, featuring the brilliant actress Tilda Swinton, suggests that Hollywood is mindful of the fact that both the film and the book may prove to be “significant.” Eva, faced with the decision of hiring a lawyer to defend Kevin, observes that “We live in a time where lawyers see trials as games, not morality plays.” She is right, of course, when she continues, “We live in a country that does not discriminate between fame and infamy.”

A number of critics are comparing We Need to Talk about Kevin to works such as Rosemary’s Baby, and admittedly, I was reminded of a Ray Bradbury short story, “The Little Assassin” and a marvelous book by William March (circa 1950s), The Bad Seed. However, Lionel Shriver’s novel is no mere “spook” tale. Although it is a disquieting novel with a “Grand Guignol” ending, there is more here than a momentary scare. It poses a provocative question: why are these massacres happening? Is there a hidden cord, a motif that bounds them together? Is it, as Shriver suggests, a desperate yearning to become “special” in some way in a world where they feel both purposeless ... and anonymous?

We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Harper Perennial 2012. 500 pages.

Several months ago, I reviewed Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone, and received an unusual number of responses from readers. In general, the responses were positive. However, there were a few readers who found Woodrell’s description of Appalachian (Ozark) culture distorted and misguided. However, others defended Woodrell’s descriptions of Appalachian life in Winter’s Bone as painfully accurate.  A few spoke with some bitterness about their experiences as “newcomers.”  At length, the whole debate wound down, but it is by no means resolved.

Now comes a new work by Woodrell, a collection of twelve short stories entitled The Outlaw Album. Like many fans of this author, I had thought that Winter’s Bone, despite the bleakness of Ree Dolly’s life, contained a powerful redemptive theme — one that suggested that this teenager would not only survive, but would become the means of saving her family. In effect, there was something innate in Ree Dolly’s genes that would sustain her. She would find a way to keep the land and protect her brothers.

Well, there is nothing in The Outlaw Album that speaks of redemption. These beautifully crafted short stories nestle together like 12 black pearls in a velvet-lined box ... luminous, lethal and uncompromisingly dark. The themes are familiar ones: a conflict with a new neighbor that turns into a murder; a wheel-chair bound serial killer; a campground manager who finds himself in a deadly conflict with a marauding gang; a storeowner, grieving for his missing daughter, and becoming increasingly paranoid as the years pass, wondering if his daughter’s killer is one of his customers. Then, there is the man who sets fire to a real estate development in an attempt to return the land to the way it looked before the developers came. On and on, these spare, dark tales unwind ... each a testament to the infinite variations in the nature of evil. Is it inherited or imported?  Is it a random virus or a judgment?

The protagonist of “Black Step,” an Iraqi veteran who has decided to re-enlist, relates the tragic aftermath of his father’s suicide and how his ailing mother painted the back-step black because it was stained with his father’s blood. After a life-time of raising livestock, the Girard farm is failing and is surrounded by new homes and real estate developments. Before leaving, the Iraqi veteran notes that the farm and the family cemetery appears to be sinking out of sight and observes that he “likes graves that disappear.”

“Night Stand” is possibly the most frightening story in this collection. It is narrated by a man named Pelham, who awakes one night to find a naked man standing by his bed growling. Seizing a knife, Pelham stabs the man to death. Belatedly, Pelham learns that the dead man was an ex-Marine (like Pelham). Eventually he comes to feel that he has been manipulated by a deranged man who wanted to commit suicide. In his search to find why the dead man “selected” him, Pelham befriends the victim’s father. As a consequence, both learn a heartbreaking truth.

“Two Things” proves to be possibly the most despairing story in this collection. Essentially, it defines a meeting between a social worker and the father of a boy named Cecil who is up for parole. The social worker has brought a scrapbook filled with Cecil’s “creative works” ... poems and drawings that allegedly bear witness to Cecil’s innate creative talent. The social worker wants the father to speak on behalf of his son, but she learns that Cecil’s family no longer feels that he can be redeemed. The father says, “He ain’t getting no more poems off of us.”

“The Horse in Our History” attempts to reconcile all of the contradictory folklore in a small Texas town regarding a legendary horse, a black jockey and a Afro-American prostitute named Dyna Flo. Was there an historic race? Was the dead man found by the railroad tracks the jockey? Did the town die because Dyna Flo was ostracized? Was Bleu the name of the horse or the owner?  Is it possible that the horse never existed and the fabulous tale told by the town folks is merely a desperate effort to keep the past alive by making it colorful?

“Woe to Live On” recounts the history of Coleman Younger, an enigmatic outlaw who rode with Quantrill’s Raiders and participated in some of the most horrifying atrocities of the Civil War. Coleman’s biographer, a man named Roedel, attempts to “honor” Younger and his vicious companions by carving driftwood images — a process that he describes as a means “whereby the large is rendered small.” As Roedel whittles and talks about the life of Coleman Younger, we learn that Roedel was a party to some of the war’s most shameful events, including mass executions and scalpings.

Particularly well done is “Dream Spot,” which relates the final episode in the life of a serial killer named Dalrymple and his female companion, Janet. Dalrymple specializes in the murder of hitch-hikers and unsuspecting motorists — that is until this final day when he finds a woman in a long coat standing on a lonely road, a woman who seems to be “predestined” to meet him here on this day.

The character Sleepy in the story “One United” enjoys his job of intimidating a farm family who are scheduled to testify in court. “Do I smell your barn burning?” asks Sleepy as he stands on the farmer’s porch. The frightened family realizes that if they speak out about some of the criminal acts carried out by the banks, they will lose their farm.

I found no stories that could be described as “uplifting and hopeful” in The Outlaw Album. Instead, I found 12 dark fables that provide proof that the world is going to hell. Like Cormac McCarthy, Woodrell not only sees evidence that the world is spiraling into chaos; he believes that we are long past a point where we could reverse the approaching apocalypse. It seems unlikely that there is a significant audience for a message like that.

The Outlaw Album is a paradox: dark and depressing, but beautifully crafted.

The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell. Little, Brown and Company, 2011. 168 pages

The Leopard marks the eighth crime novel featuring the chain-smoking alcoholic Inspector Harry Hole of the Oslo Police Department, an agency that is rife with political intrigue, corruption and ineptitude. However, since Hole is immune to politics, doesn’t take bribes and has a reputation for always solving murder cases, he is the department’s calendar boy ... a fact that makes him despised by many of his fellow officers.

Somewhere between the last chapter of The Snowman, and the opening pages of The Leopard, Harry has managed to acquire yet another offensive (but secret) addiction: opium. In fact, his addiction is the direct result of the mental and physical traumas he suffered (he lost a finger and ended up with a broken jaw that left him badly disfigured) in tracking down Norway’s most notorious serial killer, the Snowman. 

Consequently, The Leopard is a sequel to Nesbø’s previous crime novel, The Snowman. In fact, the captured Snowman, who is slowly and painfully dying in prison, plays a significant role in the search for the new serial killer. (In a scene which is reminiscent of “The Silence of Lambs,” Harry Hole bargains with the Snowman for some insight into the mind of the new killer.)

As The Leopard opens, the reader learns that Harry has resigned and fled to Hong Kong where he has become an addict who spends most of his time trying to evade his debtors (he gambles). In fact, Harry seems well on his way to a nameless death in a Hong Kong slum when Kaja Solness, a police woman from Oslo, finds him. She has two messages for Harry: another serial killer is on the loose in Oslo; and Harry’s father is dying. Allegedly indifferent to yet another bestial killer who has dispatched two victims by a cunningly constructed device called Leopold’s Apple, Hole responds by finding a way to smuggle cigarettes/opium to Oslo and returns home and to Oleg Hole’s hospital bed.

For the uninitiated, it should be noted that Harry Hole is, in every sense of the phrase, “a work of art.” Women always comment on the fact that he is “Tall (6-foot, 4-inches) ugly and blond.” He is also a shameless admirer of American pop culture and prides himself on his encyclopedic knowledge of Hollywood crime films (“Dirty Harry,” “French Connection” and the “Godfather” trilogy.) He plays Coltraine and Charlie Parker jazz, collects bluegrass and is currently reading a biography of Hank Williams Sr. His taste in art runs to painters like Edvard Munch and most of his favorite writers are (like Harry) manic depressives (Charles Bukowski, Jim Thompson).

His love life tends to be steamy and violent. He is totally devoted to a Russian paramour, Rakel, who is afraid to live with him because Harry’s arch-enemies invariably try to kill her and her son, Oleg. (The Snowman took them as hostages). However, Harry’s devotion to Rakel does not prevent him from sleeping with a bevy of sultry ladies, including Kaja Solness.

The Leopard has an intricate and convoluted plot which alternates between frantic attempts to intercept the killer. Each time Harry Hole learns the identity of a potential victim, he finds himself enmeshed in an interdepartmental power struggle instigated by a ruthless and ambitious official, Michael Bellman, who attempts to seize control of Oslo law enforcement agency by creating a competitive department called Krypos. For the political chess game to be a success, Bellman schemes to discredit both the existing police department and Harry Hole. As a consequence, Harry finds himself frustrated at every turn as Bellman contrives to interfere with the investigation and take personal credit for subsequent arrests.

When the number of fatalities increases to eight, Harry discovers that four of the victims spent a night in an isolated mountain retreat and ... the killer was also there. Hole and Kaja narrowly escape death when a scheme to draw the killer back to the cabin fails. Trapped in the cabin, Harry and Kaja are buried in an avalanche (created by the killer). Time and time again, Harry confronts suspects only to discover that they are not the killer he seeks but are often guilty of other crimes.

Of all of the Harry Hole novels, The Leopard proves to be the most complex. The plot becomes a tangled mass of intrigue with an atmosphere that grows dark and menacing. In addition, the excessive number of characters makes it difficult to remember who did what to whom ....and why.

Before Harry’s final confrontation, the reader may come to empathize with Harry Hole’s sense of disgust and loathing at the world around him. Certainly, The Leopard contains an excessive number of people who are motivated by self-interest: power, greed and envy. In all of the previous novels, Harry Hole has “got his man,” but each time, he has paid for his success by physical and mental suffering. It is no surprise then to discover that in the final, terrifying pages of The Leopard, a drugged Harry wakes in an abandoned church to find something painful in his mouth.

(Gary Carden is a writer and storyteller who lives in Sylva. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)

The Leopard by Jo Nesbø. Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. 517 pages.

Saddle up, kind hearts. I have a winner. Like most good things, this book came to me from a good friend who is in a position to read books that I would normally never see. Knowing something of my eccentric tastes it literature, my friend sent me an urgent dispatch, saying I should purchase it immediately. So I did and here we are.

Brodeck’s Report meets all the requirements of qualifying as a beautifully-crafted French novel (translated by John Cullen) that not only has the power to enthrall, but also posses some significant questions about humanity’s condition: are we blessed, doomed or merely irrelevant?

From the first page, Brodeck’s Report reflects that “timeless” quality that we associate with fables and fairy tales. Claudel’s characters move through a Brothers Grimm world in which the inhabitants of a small village are identified by their occupation: Schloss, the innkeeper; Diodeme, the teacher; Orschwir, the butcher; Cathor, the pottery-mender. The time is uncertain, and although there are distinct references to WWII atrocities (concentration camps) and 20th century technology (Brodeck owns an ancient typewriter), the novel’s small village seems timeless — a world where the necessities of existence (food, shelter, procreation) follow the ancient rituals that attend seasons. Change only comes to Claudel’s village with invasions and war.

Brodeck, the reluctant protagonist, has been given the dubious honor of writing a report regarding a mysterious incident that occurred at the local inn – the murder of a stranger who had recently arrived in the village. Since Brodeck owns an old typewriter (the only one in the village), he has been ordered to write an account of the crime. He is reluctant to do so. As time passes and the inquiries about his report become more impatient, the reader begins to sense that something sinister has occurred in the past.

As Brodeck becomes increasingly paranoid, he begins to write about events from his own past, events so horrifying he has attempted to erase them.

Eventually, we learn that Brodeck is not a native of the village. Although he has a family (his mother, wife and daughter) and has spent most of his life in this village, he is aware that his neighbors consider him — like the stranger who was recently murdered at the inn — “Anderer” meaning “he came from over there.”  In other words, the villagers consider both Brodeck and the murdered stranger someone “who is among us, but not of us.”

Brodeck came to the village as a child and grew to become a valued member of his community. In fact, when he is an adult, the village elders send Brodeck to a nearby city where he will learn skills that might prove useful in the village. The homesick Brodeck yearned to return to the village, and his beautiful wife Emelia, and finally he does so. However, he is troubled by events that he had witnessed in the city where he had seen people attacked, called “Fremder,” and driven from their homes. Eventually, he learned that “Fremder,” like the word “Anderer,” was an offensive word used to describe “unwanted foreigners.”

For several years, Brodeck is blissfully happy in his village. Then, war erupts in the city and eventually an army appears. An officer orders the mayor to “cleanse” his village or suffer the consequences. Bewildered and desperate, the mayor consults the town elders and together they create a list of “Fremders” — eccentrics, misfits, people who are not “native to the region. Brodeck is one of them.

Brodeck’s three years in the prison are filled with unspeakable horror. Although he survives, he is reduced to a bestial state and witnesses crimes that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Indeed, he is a participant in shameful acts. He remembers that his guards force him to walk naked on all four like an animal and taught him to repeat the mantra, “I am nothing.”

When the war is over, Brodeck returns to the village to discover that his wife is now a mute due to a brutal gang-rape, and that she now has a daughter, Poupchette — a child that Brodeck readily accepts as his own. Slowly, he rebuilds his life despite that fact that he knows that his neighbors have previously cast him out as a scapegoat.

So we come to Brodeck’s task — a report that gives an objective account of how (and why) the stranger at the inn was murdered. Brodeck “sees” the crime, but did not participate in it. He describes how the “Anderer” arrived in the village with a pampered horse and donkey, acquired lodging at the inn where he ate and drank to excess. Initially, he is accepted and a number of the villagers attempt to befriend him. The Anderer listens, but says little, and as the weeks turns into months, the villagers realize that he makes careful notes of all he sees and hears. At length, when the visitor shows no inclination to continue his journey to other towns and cities, the village begins to resent his presence.

On the night of his death, the Anderer treats the village to a kind of party complete with lavish food and wine. He even distributes a kind of personal “gift” to his guests .... a drawing that manages to capture the essence of each individual. Far from being pleased, the villagers destroy their paintings and their mood turns dangerous. Who is he? Why is he here? Is he judging the people of the town? Is he condemning them? When the villagers draw their knives and surround the Anderer, Brodeck withdraws, becoming a witness.

Brodeck’s Report is a dark parable. There is much here that could be termed “Kafkasque” since the novel’s atmosphere is thick with a kind of sinister threat, as though something unspeakable was about to happen. In addition, much of the action reminds me of the films of Michael Haneke, the German/Austrian director, who takes great pleasure in presenting dark tales of betrayal and moral decay (“The White Ribbon”).

Despite the sobering message behind Brodeck’s Report, this novel is probably a masterpiece. Admittedly, it is bleak, but it is also redemptive, for it affirms some essential goodness in mankind, something that rises despite overwhelming odds, and goes on. Brodeck does that. Like Aeneas fleeing Troy, Brodeck takes up his aging mother and his mute wife and his daughter, and he walks out of the village. He will start again somewhere ... where, doubtless, someone will call him “Fremder.”

(Gary Carden is a writer and storyteller who lives in Sylva. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)