The Fall of the Year

The Fall of the Year is a wonderful book, especially for dedicated Mosher Fans. I'd like to point out to first-time readers of his novels that his masterpiece is A Stranger in the Kingdom and I strongly recommend reading that first. Most of the people in the town and county where his books are set are featured in considerable detail in that book. That is the place to really get to know them, so that when you pick up one of his other books, you recognize the person being written about and have a better understanding of his/her character. Also, don't be surprised that he sprinkles many of his books with touches of the surreal or supernatural. You wont get a concrete explanantion of some of these phenomena, but it's obvious that Kingdom County (real life Orleans County, Vermont) is a magic place for him and he makes both wonderful and terrible things happen there. I'm proud to own every one of his books, I was hooked after A Stranger in the Kingdom and even led my book discussion group in it a few years ago. You can re-enter a time and place that is fast disappearing from this country; many things about the way of life he describes are already gone for good. But dont pass up Mosher, whatever you do. If you read this book and felt you didnt get much out of it, read Stranger in the Kingdom and then come back. All his books run through the whole history of the area and are worth having as collectors items.

Mr. Mosher has a great love of time and place, and this love shows quite clearly in his series of novels about the fictional Kingdom County, Vermont, in the mid part of this century. I've read several of his works, and thoroughly enjoyed all of them. When I began this latest one, I had assumed, because of its structure, that it was simply a series of short stories. Eventually I realized that it was, indeed, a novel, and a wonderful one at that! I loved the characters and the often bizarre situations in which they found themselves. Readers will, I'm sure, be way ahead of the narrator in discovering what is going on around him, but the charm of the writing, and the pure beauty of the story (and its perhaps too-sentimental ending) will enchant you. If you yearn for things the way they used to be, when life just seemed to be simpler and more fulfilling, you'll enjoy reading this book.

I recently read a review from a self-proclaimed "Vermont-lover." This made me laugh, and I am quite certain Howard Frank Mosher would react similarly. Vermont is an actual place- the Northeast Kingdom is hardly a fiction, to be rendered "quaint" by seasonal visitors. And the Kingdom, in particular, is a distinct realm indeed. Mosher's greatest strength is his characterization, his ability to capture the eccentricities of a remote and self-sufficient people.I also highly recommned the novella, Where the Rivers Flow North as well. It is a powerful, powerful read- and it took me several readings, in fact, to understand just what Mosher was accomplishing in this work. Despite its short length, I believe it might be Mosher's greatest effort from the region of the Kingdom. On a different note, North Country is another favorite. I urge you to pick this one up as well!

Among contemporary American novelists, it's hard to think of anyone who is as closely connected with a *place* as Howard Frank Mosher is. Each of his novels and stories is set in the remote, impoverished, northeastern corner of Vermont, where the US/Canada border wanders over mountains and through cedar swamps, where part-time loggers and millworkers and stonemasons, and stubborn farmers and farmwives, wander through a world that can be at times painful, at times uplifting, and always wonderful. This latest book, "The Fall of the Year", may be Mosher's best ever, and it's probably the best novel I've read in the past few years. At first, it seems like a collection of short stories -- each individually engaging, but only loosely tied together. By the midpoint of the book, though, the themes and connections between the chapters are increasingly apparent, and the book builds to a climax in the final pages that is both perfect and satisfying -- even for those who have seen it coming for several chapters. The land that seems to hold Mosher's heart -- the cold, declining yet fiercely resistant world of Northern New England -- had its economic and cultural heyday decades ago, and has long since seen its farms abandoned and grown back into forest, its prime hardwood and softwood lumber cut out and taken away, its mills closed, and its unique culture diluted by the ever-increasing pressure from the outside forces of Modern America. Faced with this history, many of Mosher's previous stories have had bittersweet endings, marking the fading away of a way of life that included beauty along with its hardship. What sets "The Fall of the Year" apart from Mosher's previous work is its quietly optimistic conclusion -- when the end of the book comes (regretfully too soon), we are left with an unusually strong, and intimate, sensation of the quiet, personal happiness that lies in store for the characters we have come to love. In all of Mosher's works, there are two overriding forces that engage his pen: the sweeping drama of the landscape with its brooding swamps and mountain "fastnesses", and the fierce spirits of the people who make their lives in that landscape, both as individuals and as a community. Both of these forces are present in "The Fall of the Year", but in a more introspective, personal, and intimate scale, that ultimately leaves us with more of the "sweet" in "bittersweet". After reading "The Fall of the Year", I'm really looking forward to seeing where Howard Frank Mosher will take us next.

I have enjoyed all of Howard Frank MOsher's books, particularly NORTHERN BORDERS. This book is a great addition to his work. The stories about the people of Kingdom County are sagacious, loving and enchanting. I thought the book started a bit slowly, but it ineluctably gained steam, getting better and better, and it culminated in a magical, wonderful way. Mosher's descriptions of small town life in northern New England evoke a nostalgic era that has passed, and his portrait of the North Country itself is vivid. This is a magical, marvelous book, and I hope it is a success for Mr. Mosher.