Where every other building is an empty church
Jason Brown unravels his screwy puritan past in Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work
By Paula Crossfield
Published: January 2nd, 2008 | 2:57pm
In his latest collection of stories, Jason Brown follows the well-trodden path of New England scribes who write about the forsaken. The narratives in Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work take place in the town of Vaughn, Maine, where every other building is an empty church. His characters are either resigned to the fact that they will take their last breath in Vaughn (more than once a parent, defeated, is caught staring at the wall), or are preoccupied by getting out. Brown grew up in a similar town in Maine, but he escaped to Arizona where he now lives, and admits that he was like the second camp of Vaughnites. But his past has haunted him and left him with stories to tell.
In the title tale, a boy whose sister has committed suicide seeks to find out about her dark side. He befriends the boy who all the mothers try to keep their sons away from and who makes him feel “chosen” after a painful reprieve on the train tracks. A feeling of malevolence is the undertow for all of Brown’s characters; their uncertainties translate into harsh, often self-serving actions that leave a wake for us to wander in. Women who manipulate, unspoken words between family members, sibling rivalry, and the burden of history are weights that sink like anchors in the Kennebec River. There is a silver lining: You feel that Brown can’t help but root for them to change or at least get out of town too.
The strongest story in the work is “Afternoon of the Sassanoa,” in which an overzealous father and an undemonstrative son end up on the waters of the bay at dusk in a leaky boat. Because Brown’s stories are driven by unspoken angst and egocentric acts, they run the risk of protracted endings. These individuals are complex and their voices are many, muddling the unity of the collection. But Brown’s skill is in rendering humanity from inside each mind and in portraying the scenic detail. These stories are linked by nature’s omnipresence; an old lady’s backyard woodlands chopped down by her logger nephew, a hockey player who falls through the ice of a pond. Nature is ominous, not holy, as Ralph Waldo Emerson would have had it. Brown takes us to Vaughn to dig out his own past, through pilgrims still trying to decipher why they’ve ended up here.
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ABOUT THIS BOOK
Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work (Open City Books)
By Jason Brown
284 pages
$14.00
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