“It is the time of year when Kit must rise in the dark, as if he were a farmer or a fisherman, someone whose livelihood depends on beating the dawn, convincing himself that what looks like night is actually morning. His only true occupation these days, however, is fatherhood; his only reason for getting up at this dismal hour is getting his children to school.”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  (APR 8, 2014)

Julia Glass’s latest book strikes right to the core of personal identity. How do we solidify our sense of who we are if we don’t know where we came from? In what ways can we take our place in the universe if our knowledge of our past is incomplete?

Kit Noonan has reached a fork in the road. Underemployed with no clear sense of purpose, he is floundering, until his wife urges him to take some time away to work out the secret of his father’s identity. That search leads him back to his stepfather Jasper in Vermont – a self-sufficient outdoorsman who effectively raised him along with two stepbrothers. Eventually, the journey brings him to Lucinda, the elderly wife of a stroke-ravaged state senator and onward to Fenno (from Julia Glass’s first book) and his husband Walter.

Through all this, Kit discovers the enigma of connections and which connections prevail. As one character states,

“..the past is like the night: dark yet sacred. It’s the time of day when most of us sleep, so we think of the day as the time we really live, the only time that matters, because the stuff we do by day somehow makes us who we are. We feel the same way about the present…. But there is no day without night, no wakefulness without sleep, no present without past.”

The biggest strength of this novel – by far – is the beautifully rendered portrayal of characters. Kit, Jasper, Lucinda and her family, Feeno and Walter – even Kit’s twins – are so perfectly portrayed that they could walk off the pages. As a reader, I cared about every one of them and – as the book sequentially goes from one character to another – I felt a sense of loss from temporarily leaving him or her behind.

The only weakness was an overabundance of detail (scenes, back story, etc.), which robbed me of using my imagination to “fill in the blanks.” While vaguely discomforting, this story is so darn good and the writing is so darn strong that I was glad to be immersed in its world for the several days I was reading. Kit’s journey and his recognition of what “family” really means — and our imperfect connected world — has poignancy and authenticity.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 9 readers
PUBLISHER:	Pantheon (April 1, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on Julia Glass
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: I See You Everywhere The Widower’s Tale

Bibliography:

• Three Junes (2002)
• The Whole World Over (2006)
• I See You Everywhere (2008)
• The Widower’s Tale (2010)
• And the Dark Sacred Night (April 2014)

“ Russians are from away, if anybody ever was.

But Lyle don’t want to hear all that. He reckons he’s a cut above sheriffing. Or, put it another way, he reckons he’s a cut above sheriffing the way his boss does it, the way I do it. And Lyle’s got an answer for that, too. Don’t he just?”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Lynn Harnett (JAN 15, 2010)

Backwoods “sheriffing” is a holistic sort of activity, bearing little resemblance to “policing,” as most people understand the concept. Vermont author Freeman’s longstanding rumination on the subject steps to the fore in this wry, dry, fourth novel.

Narrator Lucian Wing, sheriff of Ambrose and 17 surrounding towns, doesn’t wear a uniform and he leaves his gun in his sock drawer. He does keep the county’s expensive shotgun in the trunk of the sheriff’s car, but he rarely uses the car. “I like my truck. Plus it saves the county money.”

Sheriffing, says Wing, isn’t like car repair. “You can’t do it with spare parts. It’s a whole thing you’re working on. It’s a whole thing you have to keep going….The sheriff brings law to people who don’t need law. He enforces the law for people who don’t break it, or not much. Sheriffing is like being the bouncer at the Ladies’ Aid lunch: when things are going normally they don’t work you too hard.”

But things are changing in rural Vermont like they are everywhere. Some rich Russians put up a huge sprawling hillside mansion and then hired local bad boy Sean Duke to do some roofing and Sean had the bright idea to break in after-hours.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 54 readers
PUBLISHER:	Steerforth (March 3, 2009)
REVIEWER:	Lynn Harnett
AMAZON PAGE:	All That I Have
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	An Interview with Castle Freeman on All That I Have
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of  Go With Me Another “backwoods” type Sheriff: The Double-Jack Murders by Patrick F. McManus

Bibliography:

• The Bride Ambrose: Stories (1987)
• Judgement Hill (1997)
• My Life and Adventures (2002)
• Go With Me (January 2008)
• All That I Have (March 2009)