Families come in all shapes and sizes, with miseries of every type, each with its own imprint. But few can hold a candle to the Howlands of Maine, a clan of old-line New Englanders who take pride in their heritage, even if much of it has been artfully poached. Literary name-droppers of the first order, they built entire stories around the likes of John Updike and Robert Lowell to impress their listeners. Updike’s old Aga stove may have been legendary, but the Howland spin adds a whole new level of embroidery. As author Jason Brown allows, “Some truth was usually mixed with bull – in our family; separating the two required too much energy.”
Cover courtesy of The Missouri Review
“A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed” is Brown’s third and latest story collection, more a novel in parts, divided by generation in this family saga. What Brown brings to the table is a blend of wicked humor and a light touch, a combination so winsome that you can sense the fun he’s having unspooling these narratives. With the family’s decline in full swing, Brown plants visuals everywhere – “a falling-down island farmhouse,” a leaky skiff — a waterlogged life, one might say. The usual battle lines are drawn – the elder John Howland owns the family house, such as it is, but can’t afford its upkeep, and so leaves it to an unlikely grandson. Said grandson, naturally, has his own issues, as indeed do other family members who have their own plans for the property.
A sense of entitlement pervades the book, often to darkly comic effect: “You have boats,” says one of the Howland girlfriends. “You are people with boats and an island with your name on it. Where I come from, people have broken cars.” Then later, Brown writes of the ascendant Howland daughter, Bridget, “Striving constituted an unforgivable sin to those of us who believed ourselves chosen a priori and, therefore, beyond the indignity of scrabbling after the very things about which, of course, one found it difficult to feel chosen.”
The stories in this collection always return to the patriarch, John Howland, a scamp who, in the opening piece, cons his toddler great-grandson into duping the family regarding his whereabouts. Later, he plots his own farcical suicide – having a three-foot grave dug in the ground, where he plans to lie and wait for death to find him. When that fails, he rises to the occasion, as readers laugh along with the joke.
Yet all is not endless laughter in Brown’s fictional world. He portrays an early shipwreck with suitable horror, and reminds us of the unrelenting harshness of a climate that, at times, nearly chills the page. This is a Maine book in the most elemental sense.
A word about the book’s title: Based on a quote from 17th century American minister Cotton Mather, the title conveys a retro air that underpins these stories. Yet the lumbering aspect of that centuries-old language couldn’t be farther from the tenor of the book. Yes, the genealogy of this clan dates back to the 17th century, but the substance and ironies of their story are both timeless and modern: Errant sons, rebellious leanings, generational angst – all are alive and well in the Howland orbit.
Joan Silverman writes op-eds, essays, and book reviews. Her book of linked essays, “Someday This Will Fit,” was recently released by Bauhan Publishing.
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