The Fall of the Year: A Novel

by Howard Frank Mosher

A priest's adopted son narrates a colorful tale of small-town Vermont life in this autobiographical novel from the author of A Stranger in the Kingdom.
Set in the beautiful mountains of Kingdom County, The Fall of the Year is Howard Frank Mosher's brilliant autobiographical novel about love in all its forms, from friendship to the most passionate romance, in a place where family, community, vocation, and the natural world still matter profoundly.
Here are the lively stories of the eccentric inhabitants of Kingdom County, including Louvia the Fortuneteller; Foster Boy Dufresne, the local bottle picker and metaphysical savant; the incomparably strange clairvoyant and matchmaker, Louvia the Fortuneteller; Dr. Sam E. Rong, a wayfaring Chinese herbalist and connoisseur of human nature; the itinerant vaudevillian mind reader, Mr. Moriarity Mentality, who uses his unusual powers to teach the town fathers a lesson they will never forget; and the daredevil tomboy Molly Murphy, who risks her life to fulfill her dream of running away with the Greatest Little Show on Earth. Mosher's kingdom is "timeless. It existed well before man, has survived his spell upon it, and will do so long after the curtain has fallen" (Washington Post Book World).
Praise for Fall of the Year
"Impossible to read without recalling the best tales of Washington Irving and Mark Twain." —Richard Russo
"Superb storytelling, a delightful novel filled with humor and grace." —Alice Hoffman
"Dialogue so right that you feel like you're eavesdropping on a small, special world." —New York Times Book Review
"Mosher at his agile best, spinning a tale that richly melds vibrant character sketches and a palpable sense of place . . . . his spare folktale style, a wide spectrum of unforgettable minor characters and rich sense of story sustain this ultimately winning novel." —Publishers Weekly

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Book Club

300 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Howard Frank Mosher was an American author. Over the course of his career, Mr. Mosher published 12 novels, two memoirs and countless essays and book reviews. In addition, his last work of fiction, points North will be published by St. Martin's press in the winter of 2018.

Mosher was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1979. A Stranger In the Kingdom won the New England Book Award for Fiction in 1991, and was later filmed by director Jay Craven. In 2006, Mosher received the Vermont Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts. In 2011 he was awarded the New England Independent Booksellers Association's President's Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

"How many times do I have to tell you? No one can predict the future. It's the second greatest mystery there is."

"What's the first?"

"Love," said the fortuneteller. "Love is the greatest mystery and most powerful force in the universe."


Mosher's beautiful novel is presented as a series of short stories, though you would not want to read one without the others. Here you will meet our hero Frank Bennett. A young man just out of college and contemplating the seminary, his interactions with the townsfolk of Kingdom Common form the basis of the book. Also featured prominently is Father George, an unusual priest in that he does not seem to believe that God, prayer and giving more money to the church are the answers to everything. He's spent years writing A Short History of Kingdom Common, a tome that is now several thousand pages long.

The book got off to a slow start for me as I wasn't overly fond of one of the town's first oddball characters to be introduced - idiot savant Foster Boy Dufresne, despite his irreverent questions during Bible study:

Precisely what, he demanded to know in the middle of a solemn paper on the Sermon on the Mount being delivered by Miss Lily Broom, the young Sunday School superintendent of the United Church, did Delilah do to Samson in bed to get him under her thumb?
What did she know that the Hebrew girls didn't?

But soon we meet some other residents and learn more of the town's history. What a colorful place this is! There are decades-old family feuds, circus daredevils and mystics. Students in a citizenship class learn more than they ever dreamed about the Bill of Rights. And in a delightfully revealing chapter, a visiting, absent-minded mentalist turns out to be more cognizant that anyone expected.

For you see, despite the idyllic setting, this is not Mayberry. The town has its share of bullies, and they don't cotton much to outsiders. To quote Tom T. Hall, "Well this is just a little Peyton Place, and you're all Harper Valley hypocrites."

This is a lovingly-told tale, liberally dosed with good humor, about people who are not always wonderful, but serve as key ingredients in a magical story. I simply loved it. Unless I stumble upon something better in these remaining two months, this is going to be my favorite book of the year.

[Connie G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frank Bennett returns to the Vermont village of Kingdom Common along the Canadian border. The recent college graduate is spending time helping out his ailing adoptive father, the unorthodox priest Father George Le Coeur. Father George sends him on a series of tasks involving recent immigrants as well as some of the more eccentric longtime residents. Frank was considering the seminary, but other doors may be opening for him.

There is a love of nature and a wonderful sense of place in the descriptions of 1950s northern Vermont. The novel reads like interconnected short stories. Some of the stories were humorous, others were tall tales, some had a touch of the supernatural, and the ones at the end showed love in many forms. Although the stories are a bit uneven, Mosher's warmth and charm is visible throughout the book. 3.5 stars.

[Mary Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many years ago I read an old fashioned kind of story based in Vermont and unexpectedly loved it. Every now and then I would try to figure out who the author was so I could reread that story or another of his books. Sooo glad I found Howard Frank Mosher again! The library only had a few of his books, so this is the one I choose, written in 1999.
A master story-teller, Mosher uses his beloved northern Vermont ‘Kingdom Common’ setting to lovingly tell tales of colorful and memorable folks living in this community. Young Frank, just back from college, is the narrator. His father figure and Father priest George is present throughout. From these expressive and unique individuals we are gifted humor, wisdom, grace, extravagance and all aspects of human nature. Simple and elegant storytelling with some thrown in far-fetched twists keep your interest. Going to line up my next Howard Frank Mosher book now so I will have this story warmth to anticipate again!

[Susan Ritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know why it has taken me so long to read Howard Frank Mosher. This novel of stories has made me an absolute fan. The Fall of the Year was the perfect book to read while on my retreat in Craftsbury, in the Kingdom Mosher so achingly describes in this book that is nostalgic, humorous, magical and filled with description of a world that I can still see up here, or at least the last hints of it. Fortunetellers, Chinese storekeepers, baseball, trout fishing, and small town conflict all come together in this collection of fictional reminiscences. The heart of the book is the relationship between Father George Le Couer and his adopted son Frank, and here you know that Mosher is writing from his own life. He tells a beautiful love story and I can't wait to pick up another of his novels soon.
Great book to finish on the first day of autumn.

[Cathryn Conroy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sweet, whimsical, and idealistic view of a small Vermont town in the late 1950s as told through the eyes of a 22-year-old who is on the cusp of manhood. It's a cozy book for autumn reading!

Written by Howard Frank Mosher, this is billed as a novel, but it's really a series of interrelated short stories told by Frank Bennett, who is home for the summer after he has graduated from college. Frank was orphaned at a young age and adopted by his great-uncle, Fr. George Lecoeur, the only Roman Catholic priest in the very small town of Kingdom Common, Vermont, which is nestled between the Green Mountains and the White Mountains not far from the Canadian border.

Fr. George is an unorthodox priest, who is considered a scholar but also the greatest third baseman in the history of the town. He also has a penchant for drinking beer, swearing, and talking back to God in a loud, commanding voice. (He always apologizes to God later.) In other words, he's wonderful!

Frank thinks he may have a calling to the priesthood and has loose plans to start seminary in the fall. Meanwhile, Fr. George keeps him busy with various assignments caring for Kingdom Common's eccentric inhabitants, from shepherding Louvia the Fortuneteller, who is search of a bread recipe to preventing the town's 17-year-old Irish redhaired tomboy, Molly Murphy, from joining the circus to teaching a small group of immigrants the information needed to pass their citizenship test. Each vignette introduces new townspeople as Frank interacts with them—some more successfully than others. All the while Frank is wondering if he has a vocation as a priest. As the summer turns into the fall, he must make his decision, which turns out to be easy when something quite surprising—but at first rather confusing!—happens.

This is a picturesque and charming portrayal of a time long past when our worries and concerns seemed less stressful and life seemed easier—even if it wasn't. Best of all, it's wonderful, grace-filled storytelling with a colorful cast of characters I will long remember.

[Tim Blackburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really Good Book

I loved this book. This novel revolves around a young man who has just finished college returning to his boyhood home in rural northern Vermont to ponder his future. Adopted by the local priest at a very young age, the reader is caught up in Frank Bennett's adventures during this life defining year. A traveling circus and a traveling mentalist are two of the adventures that young Frank experiences and along the way, the reader is introduced to the eccentric inhabitant of Kingdom County, Vermont. However the truly outstanding part of the book is the totally unexpected romantic twist that is introduced in the last quarter of the book. Without spoiling your enjoyment in reading this treasure, I'll just say that it is really great and incredibly heartwarming. Definitely worth your time to read.

[Patricia Tennesen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This sneaks up on you when near the end, you must hurry and finish with a surprising twist.

[Garth Mailman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Howard Frank Mosher’s The Fall of the Year is more a series of vignettes than a conventional novel but it captures a snapshot of tiny Kingdom Common amid the Green Mountains of Northern Vermont near the Quebec Border of Canada. The narrator Frank has come home to spend the summer with his uncle and adopted Father, George the parish priest who coaches the local baseball team, hunts and fishes. Little Quebec and Irishtown in cruder hands would seem caricatures. Filled with the odd characters that inhabit any backwoods community, they are lovingly portrayed as accepted members of society. There’s even room for a riff on Romeo and Juliette. The book even gave me opportunity for a rip roaring belly laugh. I’ve owned this book for 15 years, how is it I’ve waited so long to read it!

[John Senner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank Bennett, orphaned at age two and adopted by the local priest, lives in a small northern Vermont town and is assigned various tasks to care for the weirder characters passing through the town. The first seven chapters are connected short stories, but the last three chapters develop into something closer to a novel.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was a really nice little read. It's more of a series of linked short stories than a novel. The characters were vibrant and funny. A very nice, relaxing read.

[Carolyn S Main · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderful

I read at least 2 books a week.
Every year I read THE book I like best.
2022 The Fall of the Year is THAT book.
What a great great story.

[Ronald Koltnow · Rating 5 out of 5]

The appropriately named THE FALL OF THE YEAR is about fall, the season, fall as of a society, and of fall, as in the fall of man. Set in the beautiful, autumnal heart of Howard Frank Mosher's Northeast Kingdom, the novel is centered on a priest, father George, who is writing his magnum opus, A SHORT HISTORY OF KINGDOM COUNTY. Father George, and Howard himself, documents the natural world, the eccentricity and foibles of the kingdom's residents, and the simple, quotidian details that make a life, tragic or comic. The ad copy calls this an autobiographical novel, and so it is, but only is a metaphorical way. Howard did not grow up in the Kingdom, is not a priest, but is someone who chronicles the lives of others. His Kingdom County is, as I always say, the New England equivalent of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. In this novel, young Frank Bennett puts off his own religious studies to care for his ailing adoptive father and to be bewitched by a lovely French-Canadian woman whose life, and prophetic pronouncements, seem to be entangled with his own. It is the natural world of the Kingdom that is the main character in the novel though, and Howard's descriptions of trout in a pool, of a strand of birds-eye maple, of the subtle changes that herald the coming of fall that give the book is haunting beauty. Reading this book so soon after Howard's death changed the meaning of it. In many ways Howard was Father George; he was as acerbic, as loving, and as wise. His body of work is in fact A Short History of Kingdom County, whether that history ever existed or not. In truth, Howard was a friend, and I have always been a cheerleader for him. But, this book would be as great if it had been written by a stranger.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deserves a 4.5. Another superb novel from Mr. Mosher. I've read several other books of his, and enjoyed them all, but I liked this one best of all. Marvelously-done anecdotes which tie together into a first-rate novel. The natural world, families, friends, strangers, and seemingly-random events all weave together in a heartfelt story of small town life. Richard Russo's comment on the front jacket indicate a similarity with Washington Irving and Mark Twain. I don't remember Irving's stories well enough, but I'd certainly agree with the Twain reference. But Mosher is his own writer, and I can't think of anything I've read in awhile which drew me in with such pleasure and made me both smile and shake my head at the same time. Good stuff.

[Mary M.Nabers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kingdom Come

The mythical village of Kingdom Common provides the background for a series of stories and characters that both real and other worldly.
The narrator, an orphan reared by his unorthodox priest uncle, is reporter and sideline participant in events, making a cast of colorful characters come to life.
Father George is thoroughly human, cussing, threatening to horsewhip offenders, playing baseball, enjoying g a drink, but faithful to all others in both actions and spirit of humanity.
Others in the village are more colorful than realistic but bring both laughter and drama to their stories.
The novel is well written, especially in descriptions of Vermont nature and offers gems of wisdom about what is important about life. It’s about the seasons of life.

[Sheila Arel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well a nice surprise ending . 😀
The story holds true to what life must of been like back then in the NEK . The characters are so alive .
This is right up there with one of my favs of Howard .
It has all the characters and emotion of a small village .
I
I is a great make your heart feel good novel .
I appreciated the mention on butternut trees . I foraged some butternuts myself for the first time this past fall 2019 . They are not that common today . They are mentioned in the novel a few times .

[Walter Oliveira · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was an excellent story and very well written. Not a genre I typically read and so I was surprised at how engaged I was in the book. When I finished I returned the book to the library and went out and purchased my own copy. Since reading this book I have read other books by Mosher and like his style of writing. Relationships, honesty, challenges, redemption, remorse, and the value of community.

[Karenbike Patterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This writing hits me square in the heart. Mosher always writes about peculiar, brave, insightful, wise, alien, hard-working, beautiful, scruffy, mysterious, loyal people who form the community of Kingdom Vermont. Nature and the setting of the mountains, bogs, lakes and rivers is a main character where people fish and hunt but don't ski. Each story stands alone, this book is autobiographical so the lives all interweave. Mosher has never let me down.

[Jessica DeOrnellas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Fall of the Year is a collection of stories set in a very specific region near the Canadian border shared by Frank Bennett recounting his year leading up to him deciding whether or not he would enter the priesthood. The stories hold unique and memorable characters that make for fun antidotes. Overall, the stories are fun but not very climatic. There is likely more worth to these stories to residents in and around this area, who can connect to it more.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another novel set in Kingdom County, Vermont. It is narrated by Frank Bennett, a young man who was raised by Father George after both his parents were killed. The location provides some interest to the stories. The inhabitants of the village all seem to be eccentric and their stories are fascinating: the fortune teller, the traveling circus, Father George, the citizenship class, and a visiting mentalist. I really enjoy all of the odd characters and stories in this novel.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was writing about Vermont and someone from the Northeast Kingdom recommended Mosher so I picked up this book. The writing style was pleasant and simple, the story honing in on the various characters of a small town. It was kind of like Stars Hollow (for you Gilmore Girls fans) where the same characters kept showing up and being idiosyncratic, yet it was set in the 1950s. I was happy to go along for the ride.

[Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A swift, mostly enjoyable read. At times, the characters in this book become a bit too quirky or eccentric for my own liking, and Mosher tends to lose me when magic (or fortunetelling and astrology) take on too central a role in the plot. Still, the storytelling is classic Mosher, and while not my favorite of his books, it is a worthwhile read.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual Frank Mosher paints beautiful pictures with his words. Fascinating characters, magical places and a surprise ending what more could a reader ask for. I didn’t want it to end. I live within driving distance of the Kingdom and yet I have never seen it the way Mosher had, this book made me want to see it like he did.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mosher's depiction of the life growing up in northern Vermont with its rugged characters, adventure, and the importance of the seasons on everyday life drew me in, leading to hours of enjoyable reading.

[B.M. Simpson]

The Fall Of The Year was just an all around nice book and nice story. The writing was wonderful. The story was good. It wasn't action packed, but didn't drag. It won't change your life or your world, but you'll likely be a bit better off for having read it.

I'd recommend to read.

[Mary Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

HFM creates beautiful characters and these stories are both sweet and lol funny. Maybe a little old fashioned and the funniest story is not exactly pc but there is a heart in his writing that I rarely encounter. His books have never let me down.

[Flesha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book: maybe because I have spent a lot of time in the North East Kingdom of Vermont or maybe because I fell in love with the characters. This was just the "vacation" from daily life that I needed.

[John Smithers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nature's beauty

Mosher's ability to share his love of the Northern Kingdom's supernatural beauty illuminates like a child's first viewing of the Northern Lights. Childhood magic filled with innocence and awe.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful read! An unusual priest in a small town near the Canadian border who adopts an orphaned boy and rears him in the best ways possible. He teaches him to take on the hard tasks of accompanying the craziest folk in their small village. Beautiful use of prose, witty and at times hysterically funny. Just a positively delightful book.

[Janell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so sad this is the last Mosher book I have to read. I'm going to read Where the Rivers Flow North again to ease my pain.

[Jeneane Lunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book

The narrator of this tale has a wonderful personality who weaves his father's and his own memories of the Kingdom into an unforgettable story.