When he hears that his fierce, beautiful twin sister Savannah, a well-known New York poet, has once again attempted suicide, he escapes his present emasculation by flying north to meet Savannah's comely psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein. Tom Wingo is an unemployed South Carolinian football coach whose internist wife is having an affair with a pompous cardiac man. The book ends with sheer poetry, stunning and powerful, multiple short chapters where identities and dreams, longings and memories shift and cling to one character and then another within the "long loop of existence."Ī masterful near homage to Pilgrim’s Progress: souls redeemed through struggle.Ī flabby, fervid melodrama of a high-strung Southern family from Conroy ( The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline), whose penchant for overwriting once again obscures a genuine talent. With beautifully crafted descriptions-derelict farm machinery as "gently stagnant machines"-Hooper immerses herself in characters, each shaped by the Depression. Otto marries Etta on return, a less than perfect union shadowed by damaged Otto striking out at Etta. Hooper reveals more of Etta and Otto in letters exchanged during World War II, where Otto by turns is terrified, sickened and enthralled. You could have if you wanted to enough"-the novel's thematic heart. Russell disappears into flashbacks. Russell, shy lifelong bachelor and Etta’s wartime lover, follows her, finds her, only to hear her urge him to seek his own quest "because you want to and you’re allowed to and you can. Soon Otto becomes obsessed with constructing a menagerie of papier-mâché wildlife. With Etta absent, Otto begins baking from her recipes, his companion a guinea pig, always silent.
To a Cormac McCarthy–like narrative-sans quotation marks, featuring crisp, concise conversations-Hooper adds magical realism: Etta’s joined by a talking coyote she names James, who serves as guide and sounding board. She carries a bit of food, a rifle, and a note of her identity and home. As Hooper’s shifting narrative opens, now-83-year-old Etta awakens, intending to walk to Canada’s east coast, leaving a brief note for her husband, Otto.
Russell, broken leg improperly mended, could not.
One of the teachers was Etta, no older than Otto and Russell. The Great Depression burned on, crops failed, and schooling was casual. When Otto Vogel was still a child, half-orphaned Russell joined the brood. On Saskatchewan’s Great Plains grew 15 Vogel children. Hooper’s debut is a novel of memory and longing and desires too long denied.
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