Russell Banks (1940–2023)

Thornton Wilder gave us Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire and Russell Banks gives us Sam Dent, New York. Both communities are small, rural, and isolated. Considering the three stories in Banks’ AMERICAN SPIRITS in the light of Wilder’s OUR TOWN, however, one can’t help but speculate on how the passage of time has warped our vision of America. On one hand, we have stories that focus on the comfortable quotidian, while on the other the stories force us to ponder the darkness that seems to pervade the scene today.

Sam Dent is a community founded on optimistic land speculation following the revolutionary war, but the Banks’ stories seem to suggest that the American experiment may be floundering and clearly facing existential threats.

Hostility leading to tragedy underlies each story. In “Nowhere Man” a man sells a piece of property to a survivalist who has plans to turn it into a training camp for right wing activists. It is not surprising that guns and toxic masculinity ensue with predictable tragic consequences. “Homeschooling” seems to be based on actual events recently reported in the news. A lesbian couple have adopted four at risk African American children. The women’s strangeness and stories told by their children raise the suspicions of the neighbors who intervene resulting in yet another tragedy. The back porch gossip in the Wilder play is now replaced by social media. The final novella (“Kidnapped”) is a dark story with a tangled plot involving drug deals, guns, revenge, kidnapping, and murder. This one is a little less believable than the other two, mainly because the characters seem to be untethered to reality. I think making some of the main characters descendants of the original founders of the village is revealing, however, as it suggests just how far off the rails we may have come.

Banks’ vision of America seems dark and pessimistic, yet his talent for storytelling clearly is on display in all three novellas. Despite their unrelenting darkness, these are suspenseful and compelling stories of 21st century America worthy of the late Russell Banks.… (més)

Banks claims the story is an account of audio tapes that Harley Mann recorded. However, the story is a fictional account in which Banks describes life on a parcel of land in Osceola County purchased by Shakers from the Disston Land Company in 1896. The New Bethany Shaker colony, the novel's primary setting, is near Narcoossee on the Cloud River. The magic kingdom of Banks' book is this Shaker colony in south Florida where the main character, Harley Mann, moved with his mother and brothers in 1902. Banks has done his homework and writes a believable tale of a young man coming of age among the Shakers.

In the beginning, Harley Mann believes that the Shaker elders will nurture his family and provide the love and structure they need to survive his father's death. It is gratifying to have food and a reasonable place to sleep after becoming nearly enslaved on a plantation in Georgia before being recruited by the Shakers. Harley is learning to be a beekeeper and completes many tasks in the self-sufficient community, leading him and the readers to believe he will eventually become a leader.

The predominant focus and message of The Magic Kingdom is the description of the precepts of the Shakers, the Society of Believers. The Shakers engage in communal living, and they share all property. Additionally, they remain celibate, do not procreate, and must adopt and recruit new members to survive. Harley lived the Shaker life in good faith until his natural urges led to wanting a relationship with a woman. Banks describes Harley's inner turmoil and many other emotions as the novel progresses. The plot includes unresolvable conflicts that lead to anger, regrets, betrayals, and hypocrisy.

Some parts of the book were slow-moving, but I was immersed in the story and gained new insights into the Shakers, Koresh followers, and Ruskinites, groups that settled and played a role in the development of our country. Of course, the rustic nature of Florida's land was essential to the story's setting.

https://quipsandquotes.net/… (més)

This is a haunting book about the aftermath of a school bus crash that took the lives of fourteen children and left others injured, some irrevocably. It takes place in a small town in upstate New York named Sam Dent. There is shock, profound grief, followed by a need to find the responsible party. Personal injury attorneys descend on the small town to represent the families, many attending the funerals of the children to make contact with their parents.

It is told from different perspectives. These include the bus driver, Dolores Driscoll, who escaped unscathed, but shattered by the enormity of the accident; Mitchell Stephens, a NYC attorney with a daughter fighting an addiction; Billy Ansel, a widowed Vietnam veteran whose twins both died in the crash; and Nichole Burnell, the fourteen-year-old girl who will never walk again and has been the victim of her father's sexual abuse for years.

This is a book whose stories will stay with me. The small town itself becomes a character when the inhabitants slowly come together following the tragedy.… (més)