Toby's Last Resort: Flyover Fiction
Autor Pamela Carter Joernen Limba Engleză Paperback – mai 2023
In this thoughtful and moving novel Pamela Carter Joern probes the complications of family relationships, identity, belonging, and the impact of long-held secrets.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781496232694
ISBN-10: 1496232690
Pagini: 232
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 14 mm
Greutate: 0.3 kg
Editura: Nebraska
Colecția University of Nebraska Press
Seria Flyover Fiction
Locul publicării:United States
ISBN-10: 1496232690
Pagini: 232
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 14 mm
Greutate: 0.3 kg
Editura: Nebraska
Colecția University of Nebraska Press
Seria Flyover Fiction
Locul publicării:United States
Notă biografică
Pamela Carter Joern is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, playwright, and teacher of writing. She is the author of The Floor of the Sky (Nebraska, 2006), In Reach (Bison Books, 2014), and The Plain Sense of Things (Nebraska, 2008).
Extras
Toby
The last time we saw Toby, she was sitting on George’s front
porch, facing east toward the promise of daybreak while the sun squatted
in the western sky. Hear that? The lilting strain of a meadowlark, a solo
piccolo. Toby follows the worn path from the front porch of George’s
house over the rise to the family cemetery. Late afternoon in early
summer. Prairie grass rolls across the hills, verdant from spring rains,
dotted here and there by a lonesome tree. A breeze tickles the sage,
rattles the leaves in the cottonwoods. The air smells as brisk and green
as freshly scythed hay. Toby stops at the top of the rise, lets her gaze
follow the sweep of land, turns to take in all four directions. She owns
this property as far as the horizon, homesteaded by her grandfather
not long after the Civil War. She’s the last Bolden likely to live here,
and she’s grown old. What will happen to this land when she’s gone?
For now, Toby finds solace standing on the ground she’s known all her
life, covered by a canopy of sky tucked to the four corners of the earth.
She slips the looped wire off a post to open the gate to the family plot.
Grama grass and a few yuccas entwine with the barbed wire fence, six
old boots atop fenceposts, toes pointing home. Toby stops briefly to pay
homage to her mother, Rosemary. Her father, Luther, is buried here too.
She’s too old now to spit on his grave, though he was a mean-spirited
man who, one way or another, wounded all three of his children.
Her husband, Walter, is buried here. Her sister, Gertie, and her
brother, John, both claimed ten years ago by the fire that burnt the
ranch house—a Sears kit house named the Alhambra after a Spanish
fortress—that had been her father’s pride. Gertie’s husband, Howard,
died in a nursing home soon after. He now lies beside Gertie in this
place of nothing but rest.
Toby heads to the corner of the cemetery where Luther consented
to let George Bates bury his wife, Ella, and later his younger brother,
David. Luther would never have gone so far as to consider a hired hand
family, but Rosemary had loved Ella and insisted she belonged in the
family graveyard. Then, Luther had enough guilt over David’s death
that he could not deny Toby’s petitions. Toby and David, teenagers
in love, had tried to run away, but Luther followed after them with
a loaded shotgun. He had Rosemary in the car, pulled up alongside
David, the gun went off and the two cars collided. Ruled an accident,
David died from the shotgun blast and Rosemary from injuries caused
by the crash. Luther lived out the rest of his days in a wheelchair, but
he never lost his stranglehold on the family. Later, when Toby realized
she was pregnant, Luther bullied her into giving her baby up for
adoption. George found a home for her son with a distant cousin of
Ella’s, and when the boy was twelve, Toby helped nurse him while he
lay dying of leukemia.
Standing now by David’s grave, Toby thinks how this constellation
of trauma shaped all their lives, hers and Gertie’s and George’s. Sorrow
comes in waves, she thinks, as she moves past these graves to the stone
she’s come to tend. George lies here.
“We had so little time,” she says, as she squats to pull grass away from
the stone. She’d known George nearly all her life. First, as the older
brother of the boy she loved. Then an advocate against her controlling
father and bitter sister. A friend to her husband, Walter. After Walter
died, she slowly came to realize that George loved her, long before she
recognized her love for him. Even then, they did not speak of it. After
the fire, she moved into George’s house, and still, they did not name
the bond between them. Sitting on the porch one evening, George
stood and held his hand out to her. She took his hand, looked into his
eyes and nodded, and only then, he led her to his bed. They made love
the way older people do, slow and tender, hands lingering on scars or
bony hips or loosened skin, paying their respects to the ravages of time.
Afterward, she lay silent while George held her, overcome with relief
and joy and regret. If she were a different sort of woman, she would
have wept. Only weeks later, she found George sprawled on the floor
of the barn, stone cold. She sat for a long time with his head in her lap
before she called the county sheriff.
The last time we saw Toby, she was sitting on George’s front
porch, facing east toward the promise of daybreak while the sun squatted
in the western sky. Hear that? The lilting strain of a meadowlark, a solo
piccolo. Toby follows the worn path from the front porch of George’s
house over the rise to the family cemetery. Late afternoon in early
summer. Prairie grass rolls across the hills, verdant from spring rains,
dotted here and there by a lonesome tree. A breeze tickles the sage,
rattles the leaves in the cottonwoods. The air smells as brisk and green
as freshly scythed hay. Toby stops at the top of the rise, lets her gaze
follow the sweep of land, turns to take in all four directions. She owns
this property as far as the horizon, homesteaded by her grandfather
not long after the Civil War. She’s the last Bolden likely to live here,
and she’s grown old. What will happen to this land when she’s gone?
For now, Toby finds solace standing on the ground she’s known all her
life, covered by a canopy of sky tucked to the four corners of the earth.
She slips the looped wire off a post to open the gate to the family plot.
Grama grass and a few yuccas entwine with the barbed wire fence, six
old boots atop fenceposts, toes pointing home. Toby stops briefly to pay
homage to her mother, Rosemary. Her father, Luther, is buried here too.
She’s too old now to spit on his grave, though he was a mean-spirited
man who, one way or another, wounded all three of his children.
Her husband, Walter, is buried here. Her sister, Gertie, and her
brother, John, both claimed ten years ago by the fire that burnt the
ranch house—a Sears kit house named the Alhambra after a Spanish
fortress—that had been her father’s pride. Gertie’s husband, Howard,
died in a nursing home soon after. He now lies beside Gertie in this
place of nothing but rest.
Toby heads to the corner of the cemetery where Luther consented
to let George Bates bury his wife, Ella, and later his younger brother,
David. Luther would never have gone so far as to consider a hired hand
family, but Rosemary had loved Ella and insisted she belonged in the
family graveyard. Then, Luther had enough guilt over David’s death
that he could not deny Toby’s petitions. Toby and David, teenagers
in love, had tried to run away, but Luther followed after them with
a loaded shotgun. He had Rosemary in the car, pulled up alongside
David, the gun went off and the two cars collided. Ruled an accident,
David died from the shotgun blast and Rosemary from injuries caused
by the crash. Luther lived out the rest of his days in a wheelchair, but
he never lost his stranglehold on the family. Later, when Toby realized
she was pregnant, Luther bullied her into giving her baby up for
adoption. George found a home for her son with a distant cousin of
Ella’s, and when the boy was twelve, Toby helped nurse him while he
lay dying of leukemia.
Standing now by David’s grave, Toby thinks how this constellation
of trauma shaped all their lives, hers and Gertie’s and George’s. Sorrow
comes in waves, she thinks, as she moves past these graves to the stone
she’s come to tend. George lies here.
“We had so little time,” she says, as she squats to pull grass away from
the stone. She’d known George nearly all her life. First, as the older
brother of the boy she loved. Then an advocate against her controlling
father and bitter sister. A friend to her husband, Walter. After Walter
died, she slowly came to realize that George loved her, long before she
recognized her love for him. Even then, they did not speak of it. After
the fire, she moved into George’s house, and still, they did not name
the bond between them. Sitting on the porch one evening, George
stood and held his hand out to her. She took his hand, looked into his
eyes and nodded, and only then, he led her to his bed. They made love
the way older people do, slow and tender, hands lingering on scars or
bony hips or loosened skin, paying their respects to the ravages of time.
Afterward, she lay silent while George held her, overcome with relief
and joy and regret. If she were a different sort of woman, she would
have wept. Only weeks later, she found George sprawled on the floor
of the barn, stone cold. She sat for a long time with his head in her lap
before she called the county sheriff.
Recenzii
“This is a kindhearted, humorous, and graceful novel full of secrets, regrets, and redemptions. I immediately related to the drama of this beautifully drawn book about an eclectic cast of characters during a summer on the prairie and Sandhills of western Nebraska. Pamela Carter Joern writes about the Great Plains with the authority of a biologist and the passion of a poet.”—Nickolas Butler, author of Shotgun Lovesongs and Godspeed
“Toby’s Last Resort is both lyrical and riveting. The writing is beautiful, the plot intricate, and the characters fully developed. The setting in the Nebraska Sandhills is inspired. Joern demonstrates with every page how the lives of ordinary people, when closely examined, are always extraordinarily complex, heartbreaking, and important. I loved every aspect of this fine novel and recommend it to all.”—Mary Pipher, author of Seeking Peace and Women Rowing North
“Pamela Carter Joern understands the flinty women of western Nebraska like few other writers. Toby’s Last Resort is a beautiful, funny, and wrenching story that explores the love of land accompanied by a desire for independence and privacy. I loved this novel.”—Maureen Millea Smith, author of When Charlotte Comes Home and The Enigma of Iris Murphy
Descriere
Mother-daughter tensions, age-old prejudices, and generational divides challenge the members of this disparate community in the Nebraska Sandhills as they bump up against each other seeking identity, acceptance, and healing.