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The United States of Books the State of Vermont
(From Goodreads.com)
It's the summer of 1960 in Vermont. Marie Fermoyle is a strong but vulnerable divorced woman whose loneliness and ambition for her children make her easy prey for con man Omar Duvall. Marie has two teenage children, but it is Benjy, who is only 12, who knows the deadly truth about Duvall.
There’s a stereotype about Oscar-bait movies the come out
late in the year, super-serious movies with super-serious actors about families
in crisis, social unrest, a woman standing on her own, and so on. Nothing
anyone really wants to see, but we all take it seriously. Yes, that’s a
stereotype, an over-generalization, blah blah blah — but we all know that kind
of movie. This book is like that — deadly serious, grim, full of people with no
capacity for joy or to make a wise decision — or any action that involves a
lack of melodrama.
I just couldn’t force myself to care about this one — not
one bit.
The book centers on a divorced mother of three, Marie
Fermoyle, and her children: Alice, Norm and Benjy. Marie’s barely scraping by,
teeters between despondency and angry outbursts. Until Omar Duvall comes to
town. The best thing that could possibly be said about Omar is that he’s a
two-bit hustler and womanizer. Much worse could be said about him. Marie is so
desperate for a way out of her life, that she falls for his flummery. Sam,
Marie’s ex, is the town drunkard — an hopeless alcoholic, surviving on crumbs
his sister gives him to get by, the children go out of their way to avoid him —
as does pretty much everyone. The new priest in town, and Sam’s brother-in-law
are pretty much the only exceptions to that. The priest is, well — he has
problems, and the brother-in-law is henpecked and an obscene phone-caller.
There are other characters — several, in fact — but let’s limit this to these
characters. I could go on and on. Not unlike Morris.
This collection of characters are the greatest
conglomeration of self-centered, self-pitying, self-deceived (often),
self-justifying, and miserable people I can imagine. And everything they do
(well, 99% of the things they do, anyway) make their lives worse (and half of
that other 1% is ruined almost immediately). On page 508, I jotted down in my
notes, “Please, someone, stop this book — just put these people out of their
misery! Mine, too!”
These people are so miserable, so self-pitying that I
laughed out loud when I read Marie thinking, “Hope . . . there was more of that
in her veins than blood.” Really? I couldn’t believe that for a second. About
200 pages later, we read, “She was so very, very tired. All this, she thought,
biting her lip, all this because once, a long time ago, she had made a fatal
mistake. She had fallen in love too young with the wrong man. Imagine, it was
as simple as that and now she would never catch up. She would never be happy.”
That I could believe. That’s one of the most honest sentences in the book.
Each male character (I think without exception — two
children, are probably exempt) is able to talk a good game, able to spin a tale
about something to make the people around him believe in him — and typically
even fools himself. It happens at least once for every character — each time I
disliked them more and more for it.
The main plot centers around Marie falling for Omar’s line
and risking everything while underwriting a pyramid scheme that he’s peddling
(as does a whole lot of the town), while alienating her two older children
along the way. Her youngest knows better than the others suspect how terrible
Omar is, but he suppresses that information and knowledge so his mother can
hopefully be happy. There are crimes not associated with Omar, people dying,
people suffering, people trying (and generally failing) to escape their pasts
and improve their life. There are two characters out of this that might succeed in improving their lot in
life, but we’re not given enough information to know for sure — a couple of
others that seem to have turned a corner, but if the 700 previous pages are any
indication these latter characters are 5 pages away from running back around
that corner the other way.
So why did Entertainment
Weekly put this one on their list for Vermont? I’m only guessing here —
there aren’t that many novels set in the Green Mountain State. There was
nothing distinctly Vermont about this book, as far as I could tell. It was
Anytown, USA — there was a lake nearby, a university not too far away (but far
enough), a Roman Catholic Church in town (maybe a Protestant one, too — but I’m
not sure), one drive in, and a few small towns within an hour or two by car.
That’s really all we learn about the geography. The state name is invoked a few
times, but otherwise, it could literally be anywhere — like The Simpsons‘ Springfield. I learned
nothing about that state, its people, or anything beyond another lesson in
endurance in the face of overwhelming tedium.
Plot(s), character, setting — this book failed on all
three. It was well-written, I guess, but there was nothing special about even
that. I really have nothing positive to say about this one, if you haven’t
noticed.
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