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Scattered Harvest
Penn County, Indiana, like all rural areas in the early 1900's, is in the process of changing forever. The horse and buggy days are fading away, as are the mores of the Victorian era. With WWI on the winds of the American landscape, the children of the one room schoolhouse begin to drift apart. Four generations of the Krouse family, like many families, have seen their share of hard times as pioneers of the Midwest, working vast amounts of land. However, Will Krouse, a dairy farmer, has everything he's ever dreamed of - until now. Confronted with a seriously ill wife, and four children too young to be of help with the family farm, he's on the verge of mental breakdown. Doctor Earl Slayer Jr. is the son of the late Doctor Earl Sr., a kindly man who accepted pigs, chickens, and eggs as payment for his house calls. Doc Jr. is looking for wealth at any cost, and sees Will as a pawn to accomplish his goals, with Will's wife, Rebecca, as his prize. Will and Doc are destined for a place called Long Pointe - an asylum for the insane, a Victorian building hiding secrets inside the bowels of its inner sanctum. Doc has a scheme, and Will, unfortunately, gets entangled in its web. Two of Will's childhood friends, twins who "flat-back" in the rooms upstairs at Honey Boy's Tavern, are his only outside confidants. Sheriff Wendell Gates, a lifelong friend of both Will and Doc, is torn between good and evil as Penn County's lawman. Scattered Harvest is about men and women at their best and worst. It's a story about faith and hope, with a labyrinth of trials and tribulations sometimes devoid of any or all human kindness. A superb work of storytelling, Scattered Harvest touches the heart, the mind, and the soul from cover to cover.
382 pages, Hardcover
First published November 23, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 20, 2008
Scattered Harvest is quite an interesting novel - in terms of writing style as well as content. Honestly, as I opened the book to begin reading it, I wasn't quite sure that the story was going to truly capture my attention. Maybe it was just the bucolic background of an early twentieth century farming community that had me thinking nothing momentous could possibly happen in this environment - but then I met Dr. Earl Slayer, Jr., one of the most despicable characters I've come across in some time.
The family of Will Crouse seems to be Americana personified. A fourth-generation Penn County (Indiana) farmer, Will has everything a man could ask for - a beautiful, loving wife, four adorable children, and a productive piece of land to call his own. Then he has to come to grips with the fact that his increasingly sickly wife is dying of consumption (tuberculosis), a killer that has already touched his family deeply in the past. Like many men, he internalizes his emotions, which just allows his stress level to build up. Unable to count on his no-good brother, he wonders how he will be able to run the farm on his own (his kids are still too young to be of significant help to him), and all of the stress soon turns him in to a shell of the man he once was. Even as all of his friends and family worry about his lack of responsiveness and tendency to wander, his old friend Doc Slayer plans the destruction of this man who married the girl he always wanted for himself.
Having helped get an acquaintance elected sheriff, Doc Slayer uses that influence to get an appointment at Long Pointe, a nearby insane asylum. Then, after committing an unimaginably horrible act that justifiably antagonizes his old enemy, he gets Will sent to Long Pointe, as well - but certainly not as a doctor. The second half of the novel relates and reveals the kinds of torturous, sadistic treatment many an "insane" person received at these old-style mental hospitals. Patients were completely at the mercy of their "caregivers," no matter what their mental capacities or states of mind, and mental and physical abuse at the hands of even interns and attendants was rampant. Now exactly where Doc Slayer wanted him, Will is routinely beaten and abused just to feed Slayer's blood lust against him. Will's only source of hope and sanity is the hospital's farm, which he helps turn into something that will benefit the starving inmates rather than the wallets of the administrators alone.
The author reportedly researched the barbarities of the treatment of the "insane" during this early twentieth century era, and he brings those horrible facts to light time and again in this novel. It's pretty horrific stuff, especially given the innocence and goodness inherent in a patient such as Will - although the beatings he takes hardly compare to the heartless wrongs committed against some of the female patients.
Thomas Ray Crowel doesn't delve deeply into the minds of his characters the way many an author would, relying primarily on description and dialogue to define them for the reader, yet he manages to reveal their personalities and true natures to the degree that you feel as if you know them all rather intimately. Even secondary characters are quite interesting. The new sheriff, Wendell, is not so much torn between good and evil as he is passive in the face of decision-making. He knows Will isn't insane, and after a certain point he actually owes his life to Will, yet he executes his duties without raising any questions. In the insane asylum, the administrator knows that patients are being mistreated, and she even chastises those responsible for it, but she never does anything to stop them. It's almost like everyone - or almost everyone - in this story is somehow incomplete. A number of men have the power to do something about the tragedy that befalls Will as he is locked away and his family scattered, but they all fail to act; meanwhile, the women, even those who practice the world's oldest profession, know what needs to be done but, in the context of their early twentieth century society, are powerless to act.
Crowel strikes just the right cord with a rather philosophical ending, leaving the reader with much to reflect upon after finishing the novel. Scattered Harvest is well worth the read.
The family of Will Crouse seems to be Americana personified. A fourth-generation Penn County (Indiana) farmer, Will has everything a man could ask for - a beautiful, loving wife, four adorable children, and a productive piece of land to call his own. Then he has to come to grips with the fact that his increasingly sickly wife is dying of consumption (tuberculosis), a killer that has already touched his family deeply in the past. Like many men, he internalizes his emotions, which just allows his stress level to build up. Unable to count on his no-good brother, he wonders how he will be able to run the farm on his own (his kids are still too young to be of significant help to him), and all of the stress soon turns him in to a shell of the man he once was. Even as all of his friends and family worry about his lack of responsiveness and tendency to wander, his old friend Doc Slayer plans the destruction of this man who married the girl he always wanted for himself.
Having helped get an acquaintance elected sheriff, Doc Slayer uses that influence to get an appointment at Long Pointe, a nearby insane asylum. Then, after committing an unimaginably horrible act that justifiably antagonizes his old enemy, he gets Will sent to Long Pointe, as well - but certainly not as a doctor. The second half of the novel relates and reveals the kinds of torturous, sadistic treatment many an "insane" person received at these old-style mental hospitals. Patients were completely at the mercy of their "caregivers," no matter what their mental capacities or states of mind, and mental and physical abuse at the hands of even interns and attendants was rampant. Now exactly where Doc Slayer wanted him, Will is routinely beaten and abused just to feed Slayer's blood lust against him. Will's only source of hope and sanity is the hospital's farm, which he helps turn into something that will benefit the starving inmates rather than the wallets of the administrators alone.
The author reportedly researched the barbarities of the treatment of the "insane" during this early twentieth century era, and he brings those horrible facts to light time and again in this novel. It's pretty horrific stuff, especially given the innocence and goodness inherent in a patient such as Will - although the beatings he takes hardly compare to the heartless wrongs committed against some of the female patients.
Thomas Ray Crowel doesn't delve deeply into the minds of his characters the way many an author would, relying primarily on description and dialogue to define them for the reader, yet he manages to reveal their personalities and true natures to the degree that you feel as if you know them all rather intimately. Even secondary characters are quite interesting. The new sheriff, Wendell, is not so much torn between good and evil as he is passive in the face of decision-making. He knows Will isn't insane, and after a certain point he actually owes his life to Will, yet he executes his duties without raising any questions. In the insane asylum, the administrator knows that patients are being mistreated, and she even chastises those responsible for it, but she never does anything to stop them. It's almost like everyone - or almost everyone - in this story is somehow incomplete. A number of men have the power to do something about the tragedy that befalls Will as he is locked away and his family scattered, but they all fail to act; meanwhile, the women, even those who practice the world's oldest profession, know what needs to be done but, in the context of their early twentieth century society, are powerless to act.
Crowel strikes just the right cord with a rather philosophical ending, leaving the reader with much to reflect upon after finishing the novel. Scattered Harvest is well worth the read.
February 26, 2013
I grew up in this area and have actually been on the grounds of this hospital. I have read of the horrors that occurred in these places. This was a good story and really makes you think about what some of the patients went through.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews