 | In early 1952, a new preacher arrives with his teenage son in a small town in northern Vermont from across the border in Montréal. Walt Andrews is hard-working, intelligent, friendly and enterprising. As a bonus, he’s good at sport. Most of the congregation is happy with his appointment, although some are offended by the colour of his skin. |
It might be my prejudice, but I was actually surprised how little racism he encountered at a time before the civil rights movement. Nevertheless, it was hard on his son. And, as continues to this day, bigotry can operate like a dormant volcano, unthreatening on the surface but menacing when it erupts. Officialdom continues to deny that race is a factor when Black people get a raw deal.
We meet Reverend Andrews through the eyes of thirteen-year-old James, son of the owner and editor of the local newspaper and younger brother of Charlie Kinneson the town’s talented defence lawyer. We’re shown Charlie successfully defending the guilty but he is severely challenged when, towards the end of the book, a man he’s sure is innocent is put on trial.
Yes, that man is Reverend Andrews, seemingly framed for the brutal murder of another outsider, a French-Canadian teenage girl who has taken refuge in the presbytery. This strand of the novel brings comparisons to To Kill a Mockingbird but to me – and I must confess I haven’t read Mockingbird recently – A Stranger in the Kingdom was more nuanced.
There’s a second strand of Black history and another mystery in the subplot concerning the friendship between a couple of local mavericks: a former slave who established the town’s first Academy and one of the narrator’s ancestors who killed a particularly nasty slave catcher. While this was interesting and cleverly interwoven with the main plot, I felt the mystery was dragged out long after I’d guessed what must’ve happened.
This was my first five-star read of 2024 but I almost gave up after the first chapter. Maybe I was simply in the wrong frame of mind, but I felt like an outsider in their town too: alienated from the characters and their obsession with baseball. Fortunately I gave it another go – perhaps because it came with a recommendation from Vermont native and author D Avery who blogs at shiftnshake – and I relished the remaining four hundred pages of small print.
We meet Reverend Andrews through the eyes of thirteen-year-old James, son of the owner and editor of the local newspaper and younger brother of Charlie Kinneson the town’s talented defence lawyer. We’re shown Charlie successfully defending the guilty but he is severely challenged when, towards the end of the book, a man he’s sure is innocent is put on trial.
Yes, that man is Reverend Andrews, seemingly framed for the brutal murder of another outsider, a French-Canadian teenage girl who has taken refuge in the presbytery. This strand of the novel brings comparisons to To Kill a Mockingbird but to me – and I must confess I haven’t read Mockingbird recently – A Stranger in the Kingdom was more nuanced.
There’s a second strand of Black history and another mystery in the subplot concerning the friendship between a couple of local mavericks: a former slave who established the town’s first Academy and one of the narrator’s ancestors who killed a particularly nasty slave catcher. While this was interesting and cleverly interwoven with the main plot, I felt the mystery was dragged out long after I’d guessed what must’ve happened.
This was my first five-star read of 2024 but I almost gave up after the first chapter. Maybe I was simply in the wrong frame of mind, but I felt like an outsider in their town too: alienated from the characters and their obsession with baseball. Fortunately I gave it another go – perhaps because it came with a recommendation from Vermont native and author D Avery who blogs at shiftnshake – and I relished the remaining four hundred pages of small print.
| I’m not sure I can legitimately link this review to the prompt for this week’s flash fiction challenge: the colour red. I’m not sure my response is even about red, but this is where the muse took me. And I really wanted a less conventional ending. But maybe my story does link to this novel, as it’s about an outsider, about colour and skin. |  |
Five days a month
As her shift dragged on, her skin got progressively tighter until she feared it would pop. Her innards simmered like a pan of tomatoes on the stove. Now and then blood seeped through the surface: when the chisel slipped and cut her finger; when her boss tenderly applied a plaster and she blushed. None of her colleagues had what she needed in their handbags – they didn’t have handbags – and the shops were too far away. Working the lathe, her mind toured her home, rearranging the shelves in her bathroom cabinet. Locating the aspirin. Counting the tampons in the box.
As her shift dragged on, her skin got progressively tighter until she feared it would pop. Her innards simmered like a pan of tomatoes on the stove. Now and then blood seeped through the surface: when the chisel slipped and cut her finger; when her boss tenderly applied a plaster and she blushed. None of her colleagues had what she needed in their handbags – they didn’t have handbags – and the shops were too far away. Working the lathe, her mind toured her home, rearranging the shelves in her bathroom cabinet. Locating the aspirin. Counting the tampons in the box.
RSS Feed
