Fremont

by Elizabeth Reeder

When Rachel Roanoke sees Hal Fremont across a diner counter, she claims him as her own. Their first date takes place in the registry office and then they set out for the small, suspicious town Hal calls home. There, in the crumbling hallway of that mock-antebellum house, Rachel and Hal consummate their marriage and start to build their rambunctious brood. Against their parents' ill-starred fairy tale romance, the Fremont children fight for their territory within the shifting, bitter bonds of family. In this tale of prejudice, identity and desire, Fremont becomes a map of survival. The brilliant second novel from Elizabeth Reeder, author of Ramshackle, shortlisted for the Anobii First Book Award.

**Review**

'Compelling, a moving and darkly witty family saga unfolding against a mythic landscape. It's gorgeous, sweeping Americana packed with quirky and memorable characters striving to pursue their hopes and loves and dreams amid intriguing twists and turns.'
- ZOE STRACHAN, author of Ever Fallen in Love and Spin Cycle

Genres: Fiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2012

About the author

Elizabeth K Reeder writes novels, essays, and stories. She also writes for the radio. Her first novel, Ramshackle was shortlisted for a number of awards including a Saltire Literary award (2013). Her second novel, Fremont, a story of ill-starred fairytale romance is full of prejudice and desire, garnered great reviews, and re-jigs notions of home, identity and citizenship. An Archive of Happiness, a novel, will be published by Penned in the Margins in September 2020. microbursts, a collection of lyric and intermedial essays about the places between life and death, memoir and poetry - a collaborative work between herself and the artist Amanda Thomson - will be published in spring 2021 as part of Prototype’s interdisciplinary strand. Her interest in the essay (in particular in experimental, hybrid forms) has developed from a desire to write so that language, form and structure embed knowledge in a way that can be ‘read’ like poetry and art with a high level of complexity and intentional ambiguity. She holds a doctorate in English Literature/Creative Writing and is a senior lecturer Creative Writing at University of Glasgow. She organises and is invited to run workshops, seminars and talks on a range of subjects, including her own books and processes; the essay; exuberant creative failure; giving and receiving feedback, and on subjects she explores in her texts such as: illness, grief, Chicago and its architecture, archives (especially difficult, elusive archives), family, narrative structure and many others. In 2019-20 she co-runs Arts Lab Lab on Reading and writing Death and Dying with Dr Naomi Richards and Amy Shea. She is a MacDowell Fellow. twitter: @ekreeder / instagram: @ekreeder26

Reviews

[Suzanne Egerton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is immense, ambitious, beautifully written and atmospheric. The term epic is not overcooking things; the sweep of it is huge, and the sense of place vividly evoked.
Put simply, it is about big family - small town. That's big in every sense; Rachel marries Hal and moves into Fremont, the battered family mansion. There is a map of America in the hall, and as the many children arrive they are named for states and marked off on the wall.
The children are diverse individuals, and Reeder manages to imbue each with a recognisable personality. As the growing family in the house on its lonely hill presses outwards, tensions and rifts grow with terrible inevitability, cracks and faults appearing in the fabric of the family as in Fremont itself. The author is skilful in analysing and describing the anatomy of relationship breakup and the ultimate decay of what was intended to be a dynasty. And she manages to provoke a real righteous reaction in the breasts of both liberals in general and feminists in particular.
So why only three stars? I hate awarding stars, three for apples, four for oranges. I have to make a case for personal reaction, and hope that readers will not be deterred from buying this book.
Here are my negatives: there are maps throughout the text, with the states filled in as the children are born; the map is central to the story. But I would have found a cast list with dates very, very helpful indeed; my memory simply wasn't up to the job of recalling the attributes and story of each character, even though I bought the paperback as opposed to the e version, and was able to flip back. I could not empathise with Rachel's hunger for ever more children ("Are you MAD, woman?"), though I recognise that this is a view many will not share. The hint of magic, with the house changing its conformation from time to time left me uneasy and unconvinced. And finally, although I enjoyed the book while reading, I was relieved to finish it, and it didn't have the staying quality of some of the four
and five star books I have reviewed.
However, Elizabeth Reeder is a powerful and talented writer, and I would recommend the book despite my rating.

[Meg - A Bookish Affair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fremont is incredibly difficult to explain. It covers some heavy subject matter (family ties, prejudice, adultery, etc.) but it's written in a sort of dreamy way. There's also a hint of magical realism, which is always a hit with me (although, I sort of wish that there had been more). This was sort of a hard book to read at some point because you really want things to work out better for the family throughout the entire book.

I will be the first to admit that I really like stories about dysfunctional families. I can't quite put my finger on why I like them so much. The Fremonts are certainly dysfunctional. You have the absent father who can't even keep the names of his own kids straight. You have the mother who seems hell bent on having more kids even to the detriment of the family that already exists. The kids also are dealing with all of their own issues. This book explores how even the most dysfunctional family can still be a unit, for better or for worse.

The writing in this book is great. In fact, it's probably one of my very favorite things about this book. Even with the difficult subject matter, the book almost as a floating, dream-like sort of feel. It made it really interesting to read this book through the nebulous prose. The only issue with this sort of writing in this book is that I felt like I was missing out on some of the detail of the characters and their motivations. Why did Hal cheat all the time? Why did Rachel want so many children in the first place? Was it more than just the map?

Bottom line: A difficult family story with great writing.

[For Books' Sake · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Hal Fremont meets Rachel Roanoke when she is working in a diner, and in the very definition of a whirlwind romance they are married and expecting their first child in a matter of pages.

They move to a mysterious, ramshackle house that Hal’s father built, high on a hill above a gossipy town in a fictionalized Mid-West.

But Hal is single-minded, and wants only sons to inherit his construction business, the Fremont name, and the (very) few bits of wisdom he has to offer." (Excerpt from full review at For Books' Sake.)

[Kohl Publishing · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are delighted to publish Fremont as Kohl Publishing's debut novel. The book really sets the tone for the type of novels we intend to commission - original, risk-taking, fearless stories with well-drawn, memorable characters.

Fremont is a big courageous novel about an extraordinary family and their curious existence in a dusty, nameless, Midwest state. Elizabeth Reeder covers a near-thirty year timeline involving an ensemble of complex characters... and somehow she manages to pull it off brilliantly.

We hope GoodReaders love the book as much as we do!

Team Kohl :)

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

[Aroha Uea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book and I loved the rich evocative vocabulary that made it come alive for me and finished it in 2 days. I was surprised to find some way into the book that the characters are black/mulatto, whatever. Funny that I presumed otherwise from the beginning. I thought it a good story well told.

[Emma Swan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It was a book for my book group and not one that I would have picked up for myself.
This book is really hard to describe, it's about family, belonging, growing up and is very character driven.
Though I could easily go a couple days without picking the book up when I was reading it I was interested in what was going on.

[KarenV · Rating 2 out of 5]

I persevered with this because of the overwhelmingly positive reviews and ratings, both here and on Amazon UK, but it really wasn't my cup of tea.

[Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not much into magic realism so found myself glossing over some of this novel. I enjoyed this family saga, though might have wished for better times for some of them.