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Points North: Stories
The final book by one of America’s most treasured writers.
Upon his passing in January 2017, Howard Frank Mosher was recognized as one of America’s most acclaimed writers. His fiction set in the world of Vermont’s fabled Northeast Kingdom chronicles the intertwining family histories of the natives, wanderers, outcasts, and others who settled in this ethereal place. In its obituary, The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Mosher’s fictional Kingdom County, Vt., became his New England version of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.”
In Points North, completed just weeks before his death, Mosher presents a brilliant, lovingly-evoked collection of stories that center around the Kinneson family, ranging over decades of their history in the Kingdom. From a loquacious itinerant preacher who beguiles the reticent farmers and shopkeepers of a small New England town, to a proposed dam that threatens the river that Kinneson men have fished for generations, the scandalous secret of a romance and its violent consequences, and a young man’s seemingly fruitless search for love—Points North is a full-hearted, gently-comic, and beautifully-written last gift to the readers who treasure Howard Frank Mosher.
Points North --
Where is Don Quixote? --
Good Sam Merryton --
Sisters --
Friendship in Indiana --
Kingdom of heaven --
Lonely hearts --
Dispossessed --
What Pliny knew --
The songbirds of Vermont
Upon his passing in January 2017, Howard Frank Mosher was recognized as one of America’s most acclaimed writers. His fiction set in the world of Vermont’s fabled Northeast Kingdom chronicles the intertwining family histories of the natives, wanderers, outcasts, and others who settled in this ethereal place. In its obituary, The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Mosher’s fictional Kingdom County, Vt., became his New England version of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.”
In Points North, completed just weeks before his death, Mosher presents a brilliant, lovingly-evoked collection of stories that center around the Kinneson family, ranging over decades of their history in the Kingdom. From a loquacious itinerant preacher who beguiles the reticent farmers and shopkeepers of a small New England town, to a proposed dam that threatens the river that Kinneson men have fished for generations, the scandalous secret of a romance and its violent consequences, and a young man’s seemingly fruitless search for love—Points North is a full-hearted, gently-comic, and beautifully-written last gift to the readers who treasure Howard Frank Mosher.
Points North --
Where is Don Quixote? --
Good Sam Merryton --
Sisters --
Friendship in Indiana --
Kingdom of heaven --
Lonely hearts --
Dispossessed --
What Pliny knew --
The songbirds of Vermont
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 23, 2018
74 people are currently reading
672 people want to read
About the author
Howard Frank Mosher
22 books159 followers 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
November 30, 2017
In order for me to enjoy a short story, I can’t be left feeling that it isn’t enough. I mostly enjoy short stories when they are connected by characters and place . This book was everything I hoped it would be. Yet, taken in total, it didn't feel like short stories but rather a novel of this place and these people, the Kinnesons of Kingdom County, Vermont. I read God’s Kingdom and was so taken by the Kinneson family and Kingdom County and by Mosher's writing that I said I would definitely read more. Time has passed and many other books have gotten in the way so when I had the opportunity to get a copy of the very last book that he wrote before his death, I jumped at the chance . I was especially glad to have it since several characters were here again as was the same fabulous story telling.
This is about grandfathers and grandsons, brothers, sisters, fathers and sons, husbands and wives, lovers, slavery and abolition, the land. Ruth Kinneson said it best - "Still smiling, Ruth reached out and touched the brook trout on the tombstone, half expecting the carved fish to dart away from her hand. Family, she thought as she headed into the village. Fishing, hunting, baseball, the newspaper, the farm now growing back to woods - all came down to family. In the Kingdom, family was everything."
You might think that it would be confusing with the time lines out of sequence. On the contrary - every time I read one, there were revelations about these characters. Like pieces of a puzzle we are presented with the history of these people and this place. The opening story “Points North” a touching story of a former slave, a man who raises his grandson, a Kinneson. "Where is Don Quixote?”, Ezekiel Kinneson's story about a man and his land and yes windmills. “Good Sam Merryton” has not just a fantastic title but a fantastic feat by Sam. “Sisters” telling about Madge Kinneson’s marriage history made for an entertaining read and has a lovely ending. "Friendship Indiana" is about two brothers and I thought these were the quirkiest of the quirky characters found here until I read the next story "Kingdom of Heaven". There are several other stories. My favorites of which were "What Pliny Knew" and "The Songbirds of Vermont". The first bringing back inimitable Reverend Dr. Pliny Templeton who I loved from God's Kingdom and the latter, the last story in the collection, perhaps my very favorite with Ruth Kinneson, a lovely way to end the book, the last written words of this wonderful storyteller. Overall it's quirky, funny, sad, and uplifting. This time I really mean it. I have to read the rest of Howard Frank Mosher's books.
I received an advanced copy of this book from St. Martin's Press through NetGalley.
This is about grandfathers and grandsons, brothers, sisters, fathers and sons, husbands and wives, lovers, slavery and abolition, the land. Ruth Kinneson said it best - "Still smiling, Ruth reached out and touched the brook trout on the tombstone, half expecting the carved fish to dart away from her hand. Family, she thought as she headed into the village. Fishing, hunting, baseball, the newspaper, the farm now growing back to woods - all came down to family. In the Kingdom, family was everything."
You might think that it would be confusing with the time lines out of sequence. On the contrary - every time I read one, there were revelations about these characters. Like pieces of a puzzle we are presented with the history of these people and this place. The opening story “Points North” a touching story of a former slave, a man who raises his grandson, a Kinneson. "Where is Don Quixote?”, Ezekiel Kinneson's story about a man and his land and yes windmills. “Good Sam Merryton” has not just a fantastic title but a fantastic feat by Sam. “Sisters” telling about Madge Kinneson’s marriage history made for an entertaining read and has a lovely ending. "Friendship Indiana" is about two brothers and I thought these were the quirkiest of the quirky characters found here until I read the next story "Kingdom of Heaven". There are several other stories. My favorites of which were "What Pliny Knew" and "The Songbirds of Vermont". The first bringing back inimitable Reverend Dr. Pliny Templeton who I loved from God's Kingdom and the latter, the last story in the collection, perhaps my very favorite with Ruth Kinneson, a lovely way to end the book, the last written words of this wonderful storyteller. Overall it's quirky, funny, sad, and uplifting. This time I really mean it. I have to read the rest of Howard Frank Mosher's books.
I received an advanced copy of this book from St. Martin's Press through NetGalley.
January 30, 2018
As I finished the last story in this marvelous collection, it was with a sad and heavy heart. Another amazing author we will not hear from again, a man who created the mythic landscape of Kingdom County in Vermont. The Kinnesons, who have inhabited this place for generations, on both sides of the poverty line, both sides of the law. They are fascinating characters whom I have come to cherish.
The stories in this collection go back and forth in time, in them we are able to revisit some of the characters I have come to love. There is humor, betrayal, much fishing, and descriptions of nature. They go from heartbreaking to humorous and somewhere in between. The people and place come alive in all his books and of course in these stories as well. They truly earn the five stars I have given them.
Luckily for me, I started this series relatively late so I still have his early books to go back and read. They are in my mind comparable to Hardy's Wessex tales, the late Kent Haruf and his Colorado towns and Wendel Barry's terrific novels. They are novels, stories to cherish, as the people and places in them come alive and capture the reader, with some wonderful, smart prose and depth of characters. Another author I will surely miss.
ARC from Netgalley.
The stories in this collection go back and forth in time, in them we are able to revisit some of the characters I have come to love. There is humor, betrayal, much fishing, and descriptions of nature. They go from heartbreaking to humorous and somewhere in between. The people and place come alive in all his books and of course in these stories as well. They truly earn the five stars I have given them.
Luckily for me, I started this series relatively late so I still have his early books to go back and read. They are in my mind comparable to Hardy's Wessex tales, the late Kent Haruf and his Colorado towns and Wendel Barry's terrific novels. They are novels, stories to cherish, as the people and places in them come alive and capture the reader, with some wonderful, smart prose and depth of characters. Another author I will surely miss.
ARC from Netgalley.
January 24, 2018
!! NOW AVAILABLE !!
In 1964, Mosher and his wife Phillis moved to the Northeast Kingdom in 1964, where he taught English at the local high school, and also where he would eventually write 13 books, including 2 memoirs. Four of those books went on to be made into movies: Northern Borders, Disappearances, A Stranger in the Kingdom, and Where the Rivers Flow North.
His characters are regular people, their life or work choices might differ from yours, some are farmers, or loggers, trappers, some are based on people he knew, or had met, that had shared their stories, and sometimes their stories were woven into his stories. Lives lived close to Nature, and in harmony with it. They are like many of those small town people in Elizabeth Strout’s novels, proud of living a simple, small, if demanding life in hardscrabble rural Vermont.
“What we found in the Northeast Kingdom was just a gold mine of stories that no writer had ever told before, and I pretty much dedicated my life to telling them.”
I’ve only recently read his “God’s Kingdom”, and I’m glad that I did, for many of those characters are revisited here. His writing shows his respect and love for the land and the people. I felt this so strongly, he pulled me into this world, and I was happy to stay. Having closed the last page of this, his final book, I am already feeling a bit homesick for this place and these people.
Shortly before his death on the 29th of January 2017 at the age of 74, Howard Frank Mosher spoke of this book, saying “I am happy to leave you all with the gift of what may be my best book in ‘Points North.’” Mosher outlived his mother by six days, her death at the age of 102.
It seems a daunting task to try and summarize someone else’s final words, thoughts put to paper. I can’t honestly separate the story from the man, when this was so clearly a way of life, a lifestyle he saw as fleeting. A town where everybody really does know your name, a place where most families have lived there for generation upon generation. Where life has changed, even here, but there is still a bit of the old ways that still remains. There are those who still remember them.
”In the end, stories and love were what you were left with.”
Before I had decided to read “God’s Kingdom,” when I was reading reviews about Howard Frank Mosher’s writing, I ran across a review written by author Jon Clinch for “God’s Kingdom.” It seems fitting to include it here.
“Vermont’s remote and lovely Northeast Kingdom existed before Mosher claimed it for his own, and with any luck it will exist long after we’re gone. That its history and culture will remain indelible is Mosher’s gift to posterity.” - Jon Clinch
Pub Date: 23 Jan 2018
Many thanks for the ARC provided by St. Martin’s Press
In 1964, Mosher and his wife Phillis moved to the Northeast Kingdom in 1964, where he taught English at the local high school, and also where he would eventually write 13 books, including 2 memoirs. Four of those books went on to be made into movies: Northern Borders, Disappearances, A Stranger in the Kingdom, and Where the Rivers Flow North.
His characters are regular people, their life or work choices might differ from yours, some are farmers, or loggers, trappers, some are based on people he knew, or had met, that had shared their stories, and sometimes their stories were woven into his stories. Lives lived close to Nature, and in harmony with it. They are like many of those small town people in Elizabeth Strout’s novels, proud of living a simple, small, if demanding life in hardscrabble rural Vermont.
“What we found in the Northeast Kingdom was just a gold mine of stories that no writer had ever told before, and I pretty much dedicated my life to telling them.”
I’ve only recently read his “God’s Kingdom”, and I’m glad that I did, for many of those characters are revisited here. His writing shows his respect and love for the land and the people. I felt this so strongly, he pulled me into this world, and I was happy to stay. Having closed the last page of this, his final book, I am already feeling a bit homesick for this place and these people.
Shortly before his death on the 29th of January 2017 at the age of 74, Howard Frank Mosher spoke of this book, saying “I am happy to leave you all with the gift of what may be my best book in ‘Points North.’” Mosher outlived his mother by six days, her death at the age of 102.
It seems a daunting task to try and summarize someone else’s final words, thoughts put to paper. I can’t honestly separate the story from the man, when this was so clearly a way of life, a lifestyle he saw as fleeting. A town where everybody really does know your name, a place where most families have lived there for generation upon generation. Where life has changed, even here, but there is still a bit of the old ways that still remains. There are those who still remember them.
”In the end, stories and love were what you were left with.”
Before I had decided to read “God’s Kingdom,” when I was reading reviews about Howard Frank Mosher’s writing, I ran across a review written by author Jon Clinch for “God’s Kingdom.” It seems fitting to include it here.
“Vermont’s remote and lovely Northeast Kingdom existed before Mosher claimed it for his own, and with any luck it will exist long after we’re gone. That its history and culture will remain indelible is Mosher’s gift to posterity.” - Jon Clinch
Pub Date: 23 Jan 2018
Many thanks for the ARC provided by St. Martin’s Press
February 26, 2018
Points North is one of those story collections that began slowly and comfortably, if quietly, then grew and grew until I knew it would be one of my favorites of this year. This is my first experience reading Mosher so I had no idea what to expect. Perhaps that is a good way to enter this collection of inter-related tales of the vast Kinneson family and Kingdom Common Vermont. The stories are not told in any particular order; you might encounter a man in one story and meet him in another as a boy with his grandfather.
It seems as if each tale is as good or better than the last, or perhaps it's the fact of spending more time in The Kingdom, with these very individualistic people, in a beautiful, if remote, setting, with a completely new situation in each outing. Mosher has a wonderful, understated sense of humor running through many of his stories and his writing is superb. You will see and feel this often difficult land as you read his words. And you will also come to see why the descendants of the original settlers so often choose to stay.
"Family, she thought as she headed into the village. Fishing, hunting, baseball, the newspaper, the farm now growing back to woods--all came down to family. In the Kingdom, family was everything." This quote from the final story, The Songbirds of Vermont, seems to sum up the "philosophy" of the Kingdom (if there is such a thing. As a side note, every time I write or say the town's name, I say Kingdom Come! I wonder what the citizens would say about that?)
Kingdom Common and its inhabitants are both treasures I will savor and I will most definitely be looking at more of Mosher's work. I'm only sorry that I discovered him after his death.
A definite 5 that I highly recommend.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
It seems as if each tale is as good or better than the last, or perhaps it's the fact of spending more time in The Kingdom, with these very individualistic people, in a beautiful, if remote, setting, with a completely new situation in each outing. Mosher has a wonderful, understated sense of humor running through many of his stories and his writing is superb. You will see and feel this often difficult land as you read his words. And you will also come to see why the descendants of the original settlers so often choose to stay.
"Family, she thought as she headed into the village. Fishing, hunting, baseball, the newspaper, the farm now growing back to woods--all came down to family. In the Kingdom, family was everything." This quote from the final story, The Songbirds of Vermont, seems to sum up the "philosophy" of the Kingdom (if there is such a thing. As a side note, every time I write or say the town's name, I say Kingdom Come! I wonder what the citizens would say about that?)
Kingdom Common and its inhabitants are both treasures I will savor and I will most definitely be looking at more of Mosher's work. I'm only sorry that I discovered him after his death.
A definite 5 that I highly recommend.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
September 30, 2017
"I've loved Howard Frank Mosher's work since his remarkable first novel, 'Disappearances.' I still quote that first book's first sentence. The themes that interested him throughout his career? Fathers and sons. Strong, smart women. Family. He had a keen sense of hope, but one that was balanced by a wistfulness for the losses that invariably scar the soul of the world. Alas, 'Points North' will be our final visit to his beloved northeast corner of Vermont, a remote swath of land he christened Kingdom County. He finished the short story collection weeks before he died in January 2017. Like Mosher himself, the book's moral compass is spot-on, the characters eccentric and original, the stories ranging from heartbreaking to hilarious. This book is a gift: Mosher saved the best for last."
March 25, 2021
This book is a collection of short stories set in Kingdom County, Vermont. The stories feature members of the extended Kinneson family that included farmers, bootleggers, abolitionists, judges and newspaper editors. They are filled with a love of family and nature and show how the people face the changes in their county. The book is not just untempered nostalgia for country life. The author wasn't blind to the dark side of life in a small town. "Why hadn't Currier and Ives commissioned a scene in which Mary Mae, having dragged their drunken father home from the Common Hotel on a hand-drawn sledge, came upon the hired man about to have his way with eleven-year-old Madge and brained him with a bed warmer?"
The stories are at different times in the history of the county and are not arranged in chronological order so it got a little confusing. For example, in one story a character is 27 and in the next he is 70. But I can understand that the order is jumbled like memories and I managed to cope. As with all short story collections, I liked some more than others but they were all beautifully written. I'm sorry that this is the author's last book, but since I've read only one of his previous books at least I have more to look forward to.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
The stories are at different times in the history of the county and are not arranged in chronological order so it got a little confusing. For example, in one story a character is 27 and in the next he is 70. But I can understand that the order is jumbled like memories and I managed to cope. As with all short story collections, I liked some more than others but they were all beautifully written. I'm sorry that this is the author's last book, but since I've read only one of his previous books at least I have more to look forward to.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
December 29, 2017
Genre: Fiction (Adult)
Pub. Date: Jan. 23, 2018
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Upon his passing in January 2017, many readers mourned Howard Frank Mosher. Thank goodness his books are immortal and can be read and reread as often as we wish, allowing us to travel into the very real, strikingly beautiful, and remote part of Northern Vermont known affectionately as The Northeast Kingdom (NEK), which is the setting of all Mosher’s works. We can also see his books on the big screen. Four of his books were made into movies: “Northern Borders,” “Disappearances,” “A Stranger in the Kingdom,” and “Where the Rivers Flow North.” In his last book, “Points North,” which was published posthumously, he secures his place among the best regional American writers in current times. In his obituary, The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Mosher’s fictional Kingdom County, Vt., became his New England version of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.” (Kingdom County is fictional. It is written as a rural county on the Vermont/Canadian border. The NEK is also located on the Vermont/Canadian border and is very much a real county). I am lucky enough to spend a good part of the year in The Kingdom.
There are ten stories in “Points North,” all set in Kingdom Common, Kingdom County. They’re mostly narrated by two brothers with the last name of Kinneson (the fictional family whom Mr. Mosher based on his own family). One brother is the editor of the local newspaper and the other is the local judge. They hunt, fish, and grow old together in the county where they were born. They have been going on an annual fishing trip together since they were boys. At the age of 80, the elder brother can still lift a canoe and place it over his head. This feat is accomplished from a lifetime of hard work that is common in the NEK. The brothers debuted in an earlier novel by Mosher, “God’s Kingdom.” In “Points” the stories chronicle the intertwining histories of their family: natives, outcasts, bootleggers, abolitionists, farmers, and others who settled and stayed in this brutally rural area. The stories are not linear. They bounce back and forth in time, which I enjoy. In each tale, the reader learns more details about the characters.
The opening and title story, “Points North,” is a touching tale of a man whose family were former slaves. He disowns his daughter, who yoked up with a man he considers trash, but ends up raising her son, his grandson, who was dropped off at his doorstep when the boy is fourteen. They are already arguing before he even knows the boy’s name. The teen is obstinate, just like him. He drives the kid nuts with his moralistic yet repetitive stories of his granddaddy’s granddaddy. But every now and then he makes a dent in his grandson’s armor. While showing him how to mark the depths of a river dam, he explains that his granddaddy was just a shaver (Kingdom speak for a boy) when the Klan came riding and killing through the town, leaving a hundred people to burn in a church. The grandfather tells his grandson that he has always “suspicioned” that the reason the dam was created in the first place was to put the church murders out of sight and mind.
In “Sisters,” we get a good feel for the hardscrabble life in The Kingdom, as well as a good dose of NEK humor. One sister talks nonstop to the other, who just happens to be dead. The sisters couldn’t be more unalike. One is sweet and virginal, though her ornery sister would call her a prude. When a couple of spooked drivers, with out-of-state plates rudely ask the not-so-sweet sister if they have stumbled onto a scene from the chainsaw movies, she ignores the question, but tells them to be mindful of where they walk, lest they put their foot on a rattlesnake. Of course, there are no rattlesnakes within a hundred miles of Kingdom County. The story is filled with the funny quirks of its characters. However, Mosher wasn’t blind to the dark side of life in his beloved NEK. At age eleven, one of the sisters drags their drunken dad home on a hand-drawn sled. She passes another drunken man who is about to have his way with her.
The Kinneson brothers are still young men in “Lonely Hearts.” The elder brother is married while the younger brother, at age 27, is not. This does not sit well with his older sibling. Unbeknownst to the younger, his brother sends in a personal ad to the “Mephremagog Daily Express” to find him a gal. He signs the ad as Lonely Hearts pretending to be his kid brother. The younger likes all of his dates that he meets through the ad, but they aren’t his beautiful high school sweetheart, Frannie, who he hasn’t seen since she left to go to college in Canada. In the interim, the town is looking for a new doctor. (The next sentence contains a spoiler alert). When they finally meet again, his sweetheart is now known as Dr. Frannie, a psychiatrist who doubles as a family physician. This is not as unusual as it sounds. (I once went to see a doctor in the Kingdom who doubled as an AA facilitator). She tells her high school sweetheart, in a joking manner that she is moving back to the Kingdom because it’s a treasure trove of mental disorders. The love story in “Hearts” might be a bit too saccharine for my tastes, but heck, “all the world loves a lover.”
I might be a tad biased on Mosher’s works because I am drawn to the author for my love of the Kingdom and our home there. I think of the author whenever we pass a house in Orleans (which was the town of his first home in the Kingdom, located minutes away from us) that looks suspiciously like the house pictured on the cover of his book, “Stranger in the kingdom.” Or, the Orleans Fair which I go to every summer. At the age of 13, my 75-year old husband snuck into the girlie tent between visits to the oddity tent with the two-headed chicken. Not to mention, one of my favorite places in the U.S. is “The Old Stone House Museum,” a once student dormitory found in Orleans County, VT. In 1836, the school was built by the first African-American to be American college-educated at Middlebury College, located in Middlebury, VT. So, maybe I am biased, though I really doubt it. I believe that he saved his best for last, as he suspected too: shortly before his passing, Mosher told the Vermont newspaper, “The Rutland Herald,” “I am happy to leave you all with the gift of what may be my best book in ‘Points North.”
I received this novel from the publisher at no cost in exchange for an honest review.
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Pub. Date: Jan. 23, 2018
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Upon his passing in January 2017, many readers mourned Howard Frank Mosher. Thank goodness his books are immortal and can be read and reread as often as we wish, allowing us to travel into the very real, strikingly beautiful, and remote part of Northern Vermont known affectionately as The Northeast Kingdom (NEK), which is the setting of all Mosher’s works. We can also see his books on the big screen. Four of his books were made into movies: “Northern Borders,” “Disappearances,” “A Stranger in the Kingdom,” and “Where the Rivers Flow North.” In his last book, “Points North,” which was published posthumously, he secures his place among the best regional American writers in current times. In his obituary, The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Mosher’s fictional Kingdom County, Vt., became his New England version of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.” (Kingdom County is fictional. It is written as a rural county on the Vermont/Canadian border. The NEK is also located on the Vermont/Canadian border and is very much a real county). I am lucky enough to spend a good part of the year in The Kingdom.
There are ten stories in “Points North,” all set in Kingdom Common, Kingdom County. They’re mostly narrated by two brothers with the last name of Kinneson (the fictional family whom Mr. Mosher based on his own family). One brother is the editor of the local newspaper and the other is the local judge. They hunt, fish, and grow old together in the county where they were born. They have been going on an annual fishing trip together since they were boys. At the age of 80, the elder brother can still lift a canoe and place it over his head. This feat is accomplished from a lifetime of hard work that is common in the NEK. The brothers debuted in an earlier novel by Mosher, “God’s Kingdom.” In “Points” the stories chronicle the intertwining histories of their family: natives, outcasts, bootleggers, abolitionists, farmers, and others who settled and stayed in this brutally rural area. The stories are not linear. They bounce back and forth in time, which I enjoy. In each tale, the reader learns more details about the characters.
The opening and title story, “Points North,” is a touching tale of a man whose family were former slaves. He disowns his daughter, who yoked up with a man he considers trash, but ends up raising her son, his grandson, who was dropped off at his doorstep when the boy is fourteen. They are already arguing before he even knows the boy’s name. The teen is obstinate, just like him. He drives the kid nuts with his moralistic yet repetitive stories of his granddaddy’s granddaddy. But every now and then he makes a dent in his grandson’s armor. While showing him how to mark the depths of a river dam, he explains that his granddaddy was just a shaver (Kingdom speak for a boy) when the Klan came riding and killing through the town, leaving a hundred people to burn in a church. The grandfather tells his grandson that he has always “suspicioned” that the reason the dam was created in the first place was to put the church murders out of sight and mind.
In “Sisters,” we get a good feel for the hardscrabble life in The Kingdom, as well as a good dose of NEK humor. One sister talks nonstop to the other, who just happens to be dead. The sisters couldn’t be more unalike. One is sweet and virginal, though her ornery sister would call her a prude. When a couple of spooked drivers, with out-of-state plates rudely ask the not-so-sweet sister if they have stumbled onto a scene from the chainsaw movies, she ignores the question, but tells them to be mindful of where they walk, lest they put their foot on a rattlesnake. Of course, there are no rattlesnakes within a hundred miles of Kingdom County. The story is filled with the funny quirks of its characters. However, Mosher wasn’t blind to the dark side of life in his beloved NEK. At age eleven, one of the sisters drags their drunken dad home on a hand-drawn sled. She passes another drunken man who is about to have his way with her.
The Kinneson brothers are still young men in “Lonely Hearts.” The elder brother is married while the younger brother, at age 27, is not. This does not sit well with his older sibling. Unbeknownst to the younger, his brother sends in a personal ad to the “Mephremagog Daily Express” to find him a gal. He signs the ad as Lonely Hearts pretending to be his kid brother. The younger likes all of his dates that he meets through the ad, but they aren’t his beautiful high school sweetheart, Frannie, who he hasn’t seen since she left to go to college in Canada. In the interim, the town is looking for a new doctor. (The next sentence contains a spoiler alert). When they finally meet again, his sweetheart is now known as Dr. Frannie, a psychiatrist who doubles as a family physician. This is not as unusual as it sounds. (I once went to see a doctor in the Kingdom who doubled as an AA facilitator). She tells her high school sweetheart, in a joking manner that she is moving back to the Kingdom because it’s a treasure trove of mental disorders. The love story in “Hearts” might be a bit too saccharine for my tastes, but heck, “all the world loves a lover.”
I might be a tad biased on Mosher’s works because I am drawn to the author for my love of the Kingdom and our home there. I think of the author whenever we pass a house in Orleans (which was the town of his first home in the Kingdom, located minutes away from us) that looks suspiciously like the house pictured on the cover of his book, “Stranger in the kingdom.” Or, the Orleans Fair which I go to every summer. At the age of 13, my 75-year old husband snuck into the girlie tent between visits to the oddity tent with the two-headed chicken. Not to mention, one of my favorite places in the U.S. is “The Old Stone House Museum,” a once student dormitory found in Orleans County, VT. In 1836, the school was built by the first African-American to be American college-educated at Middlebury College, located in Middlebury, VT. So, maybe I am biased, though I really doubt it. I believe that he saved his best for last, as he suspected too: shortly before his passing, Mosher told the Vermont newspaper, “The Rutland Herald,” “I am happy to leave you all with the gift of what may be my best book in ‘Points North.”
I received this novel from the publisher at no cost in exchange for an honest review.
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October 27, 2017
Living in Vermont just outside its Northeast Kingdom is what led me to Mosher's books. Having taught for almost 30 years in Vermont and knowing folks and scenes exactly like those he described kept me reading his books. Now, it is with sadness, that his last book has been read. Sadness because there will be no more but real joy because this one brought the same shakes of the head, knowing nods, laughter and sighs as all those that came before. If you haven't read him, start at the beginning and try, if possible, to make at least one trip to the Northeast Kingdom to see the place and talk with its people.
Once, looking for Lewis Pond, having driven over from Burlington, I stopped for gas in the Kingdom. The old bird who pumped the gas saw the car dealer's plaque and said, oh, a city girl! I laughed, inside thinking you don't know the half of it--grew up in NYC--Burlington, a city? Yeah! But smiling I asked --do you know how to get to Lewis Pond? Answer--Yup. After a few seconds I said, would you mind sharing? Nope, soon as I finish pumping this here gas. That's the Northeast Kingdom--head on up--or read Mosher--or both!
This is a review of an Advanced Uncorrected Proof, provided by Goodreads for a fair review.
Once, looking for Lewis Pond, having driven over from Burlington, I stopped for gas in the Kingdom. The old bird who pumped the gas saw the car dealer's plaque and said, oh, a city girl! I laughed, inside thinking you don't know the half of it--grew up in NYC--Burlington, a city? Yeah! But smiling I asked --do you know how to get to Lewis Pond? Answer--Yup. After a few seconds I said, would you mind sharing? Nope, soon as I finish pumping this here gas. That's the Northeast Kingdom--head on up--or read Mosher--or both!
This is a review of an Advanced Uncorrected Proof, provided by Goodreads for a fair review.
October 23, 2017
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review.
Points North, the posthumously published anthology, by Howard Frank Mosher was my introduction to Kingdom County, Vermont. The stories in this collection span many points in the history of Kingdom County with the Kinneson family as a common thread. I enjoyed all the stories, and I fell a little bit in love with Kingdom County. I look forward to reading the rest of Mr. Mosher's novels and getting to know Kingdom County and its people better.
Points North, the posthumously published anthology, by Howard Frank Mosher was my introduction to Kingdom County, Vermont. The stories in this collection span many points in the history of Kingdom County with the Kinneson family as a common thread. I enjoyed all the stories, and I fell a little bit in love with Kingdom County. I look forward to reading the rest of Mr. Mosher's novels and getting to know Kingdom County and its people better.
October 31, 2017
I received an advance uncorrected proof from a Goodreads giveaway. Having never read this author before I did not know what to expect. Unfortunately this is his last book...and I loved it. This is a collection of short stories that are set in Vermont... Kingdom County, Vermont. I've only been to Vermont once, but the eccentric characters here could be from Anywhere, Small Town, USA. Eloquently written, funny, sad and thought provoking. I'm sure many people will miss this writer and now I have been added to this list. If you've been fortunate enough to read him before don't miss this one. I'm definitely going to read more by this author. Thanks Goodreads for the giveaway and for giving me another author to add to my list of " must reads"!
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October 21, 2017
Thank you goodreads giveaway for this ARC. This book was well edited, eloquently written and seems to have a well thought plot. The reasons previously stated is why I gave it 3 stars. Now that I've said all that, this book is not for me. I couldn't get into the stories. This book should have taken me no more than a day to read, however it took a week. I couldn't get attached to the characters. The stories did not grab my attention. I forced myself to read this book and don't really remember anything exciting about it. It just bored me. Unfortunately this will go to my never to be read again shelf.
October 29, 2017
I won an ARC copy of this book in Goodreads giveaway. This book is the final book written by Howard Frank Mosher, who has written a whole series of novels about Kingdom County, a fictional County in Vermont. This book contains short stories about the County, and various generations of its residents. The beauty of the writing and the world of the County created by Mosher reminded me of the work of Wendell Berry. I am eager to read Mosher’s other novels.
January 24, 2018
I loved this book. Typically, with a book of short stories, I am left feeling incomplete with the end of each story. Not so with this one by Mr Mosher. It is a wonderful collection of stories with fantastic character development.
My thanks to netgalley and St Martins Press for this advanced readers copy.
My thanks to netgalley and St Martins Press for this advanced readers copy.
January 2, 2018
POINTS NORTH (2017)
Howard Frank Mosher
Macmillan, 208 pages
★★★★
One year ago, Howard Frank Mosher of Irasburg, Vermont passed away. Seven weeks before he died, Mosher completed his final novel, Points North. Like most of the things he wrote, Points North is about the most remote part of Vermont, the Northeast Kingdom*—three counties, 2027 square miles and just 65,000 people. A state joke holds that the Northeast Kingdom is where Vermonters go to get away from it all. In Mosher's books, Essex, Orleans, and Caledonia counties are elided into Kingdom County, and the tale is spun that it was an independent republic after the Revolutionary War because it refused to accept the existence of slavery. (That was actually true of all of Vermont from 1777-91, though confusion over the borders between Vermont, New York, and Quebec also had to be settled until Vermont became the 14th state and the first to explicitly ban slavery.)
Mosher authored numerous books made into films by Jay Craven and is probably best known for Stranger in the Kingdom (1989), North Country (1997), and Where Rivers Flow North (1998). You could think of Mosher as the consummate regional writer and place him among company such Wendell Berry, Carolyn Chute, and William Faulkner, though he generally cited Twain and Cervantes as his role models and we can assuredly see in Mosher echoes of their wit, sense of the absurd, and penchant for flawed protagonists. Points North is a seven-generation collection of Kingdom County tales centering on the extended Kinneson family and loosely held together as recollections, discoveries, and retold legends between aging brothers Charlie and Jim Kinneson, the latter the editor of the (fictional) Kingdom Common Monitor.
In Points North, Kingdom County compensates for its paucity of residents with a surplus of colorful characters, among them runaway slaves, a fast-talking huckster evangelist, and a plus-sized heterosexual man who happens also to be a cross dresser and the best fiddler in the region! Mosher, like Chute, shows us both the picture postcard beauty of rural life, but also the struggles, heartbreaks and hardships of people living in a place with more scenery and winter than wealth or opportunity. Life in a region with a short growing season, declining farms, over 100 inches of annual snowfall, and subzero wintertime temperatures requires a delicate mix of steeliness and neighborliness and in Mosher the two traits are not always in balance. Most of his Kingdom locals are down-to-earth and plainspoken; the region is well watered, the humor is dry, and the tongues are often barbed—especially when clucking at outsiders. The Kinneson brothers sometimes speculate that were the area hermetically sealed, it might be better off; modernity and change come to the Kingdom like a knife in the back—a dam project that would flood a fishing camp held by generations of Kinnesons, cross-generational secrets aching to get out, grand old buildings that can't be kept up, historical societies seeking to keep the doors open, meddlesome government officials, and innovators who raise suspicion.
I am loath to say more lest I spoil the delight of discovering Mosher's cranks, boosters, tragic figures, lovers, cantankerous men, strong women, heroes and heroines yourself. The tales unfold in non-linear fashion, which is, if you think about it, the way we actually learn history rather than how most of us read or write about it. Stories unfold like a cross between a dip into Jim Kinneson's newspaper back files and randomly recalled oral tales of people connected directly and indirectly by blood. A subtheme is the family stories one tells and those one shouldn't. Somewhere along the line Mosher tosses a curveball to the oft-repeated assertion that Vermont is the second whitest state in the Union.
I have spent time in the Kingdom and can attest that it is, as Mosher presented, a place that feels like a land unto itself. In Points North, Nature is a silent character and that too feels right, especially when one gazes at the sides of the mountains not shredded by ski resort trails, icy lakes stretching into Canada, or down valley roads too far from the beaten path for leaf peepers. There's bitter irony in that Mosher presents much of the Kingdom's uniqueness as a fading way of life just as he was about to exit it.
Rob Weir
* Former governor and U.S. Senator George Aiken (1892-1984) is credited with coining the phrase "Northeast Kingdom" in a 1949 speech.
Howard Frank Mosher
Macmillan, 208 pages
★★★★
One year ago, Howard Frank Mosher of Irasburg, Vermont passed away. Seven weeks before he died, Mosher completed his final novel, Points North. Like most of the things he wrote, Points North is about the most remote part of Vermont, the Northeast Kingdom*—three counties, 2027 square miles and just 65,000 people. A state joke holds that the Northeast Kingdom is where Vermonters go to get away from it all. In Mosher's books, Essex, Orleans, and Caledonia counties are elided into Kingdom County, and the tale is spun that it was an independent republic after the Revolutionary War because it refused to accept the existence of slavery. (That was actually true of all of Vermont from 1777-91, though confusion over the borders between Vermont, New York, and Quebec also had to be settled until Vermont became the 14th state and the first to explicitly ban slavery.)
Mosher authored numerous books made into films by Jay Craven and is probably best known for Stranger in the Kingdom (1989), North Country (1997), and Where Rivers Flow North (1998). You could think of Mosher as the consummate regional writer and place him among company such Wendell Berry, Carolyn Chute, and William Faulkner, though he generally cited Twain and Cervantes as his role models and we can assuredly see in Mosher echoes of their wit, sense of the absurd, and penchant for flawed protagonists. Points North is a seven-generation collection of Kingdom County tales centering on the extended Kinneson family and loosely held together as recollections, discoveries, and retold legends between aging brothers Charlie and Jim Kinneson, the latter the editor of the (fictional) Kingdom Common Monitor.
In Points North, Kingdom County compensates for its paucity of residents with a surplus of colorful characters, among them runaway slaves, a fast-talking huckster evangelist, and a plus-sized heterosexual man who happens also to be a cross dresser and the best fiddler in the region! Mosher, like Chute, shows us both the picture postcard beauty of rural life, but also the struggles, heartbreaks and hardships of people living in a place with more scenery and winter than wealth or opportunity. Life in a region with a short growing season, declining farms, over 100 inches of annual snowfall, and subzero wintertime temperatures requires a delicate mix of steeliness and neighborliness and in Mosher the two traits are not always in balance. Most of his Kingdom locals are down-to-earth and plainspoken; the region is well watered, the humor is dry, and the tongues are often barbed—especially when clucking at outsiders. The Kinneson brothers sometimes speculate that were the area hermetically sealed, it might be better off; modernity and change come to the Kingdom like a knife in the back—a dam project that would flood a fishing camp held by generations of Kinnesons, cross-generational secrets aching to get out, grand old buildings that can't be kept up, historical societies seeking to keep the doors open, meddlesome government officials, and innovators who raise suspicion.
I am loath to say more lest I spoil the delight of discovering Mosher's cranks, boosters, tragic figures, lovers, cantankerous men, strong women, heroes and heroines yourself. The tales unfold in non-linear fashion, which is, if you think about it, the way we actually learn history rather than how most of us read or write about it. Stories unfold like a cross between a dip into Jim Kinneson's newspaper back files and randomly recalled oral tales of people connected directly and indirectly by blood. A subtheme is the family stories one tells and those one shouldn't. Somewhere along the line Mosher tosses a curveball to the oft-repeated assertion that Vermont is the second whitest state in the Union.
I have spent time in the Kingdom and can attest that it is, as Mosher presented, a place that feels like a land unto itself. In Points North, Nature is a silent character and that too feels right, especially when one gazes at the sides of the mountains not shredded by ski resort trails, icy lakes stretching into Canada, or down valley roads too far from the beaten path for leaf peepers. There's bitter irony in that Mosher presents much of the Kingdom's uniqueness as a fading way of life just as he was about to exit it.
Rob Weir
* Former governor and U.S. Senator George Aiken (1892-1984) is credited with coining the phrase "Northeast Kingdom" in a 1949 speech.
February 4, 2018
"The past was fair game. At least in the Kingdom, and in the stories Jim wrote, the past was still very much a part of the present."
What a collection of beautiful stories from one of America's great regional writers. Mosher is one of those writers that has been on my to-read list for years but I never got around to starting one of his novels until I heard of his death last year. As a lover of short stories and American regional fiction, I was so excited to read this collection. There's something magical about these, knowing that it was his last (as he did himself and said so before his death) and that it would transport readers back to his fictional world of Kingdom County. Longtime fans of Mosher will enjoy this collection the most as characters, settings, and events from the novels are revisited. Since I have not read his novels (or seen the movies they were made into), I know that I missed out on some of the magic here but each story was lovely and charming as a new reader. If I had read Mosher's other work, I'm positive my rating would be higher.
There is a true love in every piece for the untarnished beauty of nature, the richness of history, and the importance of family. I really felt a sense of the author himself in the stories and it made the pieces each feel more real than typical fiction. It's like he put life itself into them. My favorites were "Where is Don Quixote?", "Sisters", "Lonely Hearts", and "Dispossessed". I'm looking forward to the novels even more so now to meet these characters more fully and spend more time in the Kingdom.
Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to do so.
What a collection of beautiful stories from one of America's great regional writers. Mosher is one of those writers that has been on my to-read list for years but I never got around to starting one of his novels until I heard of his death last year. As a lover of short stories and American regional fiction, I was so excited to read this collection. There's something magical about these, knowing that it was his last (as he did himself and said so before his death) and that it would transport readers back to his fictional world of Kingdom County. Longtime fans of Mosher will enjoy this collection the most as characters, settings, and events from the novels are revisited. Since I have not read his novels (or seen the movies they were made into), I know that I missed out on some of the magic here but each story was lovely and charming as a new reader. If I had read Mosher's other work, I'm positive my rating would be higher.
There is a true love in every piece for the untarnished beauty of nature, the richness of history, and the importance of family. I really felt a sense of the author himself in the stories and it made the pieces each feel more real than typical fiction. It's like he put life itself into them. My favorites were "Where is Don Quixote?", "Sisters", "Lonely Hearts", and "Dispossessed". I'm looking forward to the novels even more so now to meet these characters more fully and spend more time in the Kingdom.
Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to do so.
September 11, 2018
“Vermont’s remote and lovely Northeast Kingdom existed before Mosher claimed it for his own, and with any luck it will exist long after we’re gone. That its history and culture will remain indelible is Mosher’s gift to posterity.” - Jon Clinch
January 24, 2018
While I loved the stories and how they connected to either the Kinneson family or the location Kingdom County, the racial notes gave me pause. I understand that was where we were in the time period given but, it's still uncomfortable for me at times. Thank God for abolitionist and those fighting to see all people free. Overall, I thought it was excellently executed and a great book to end a great career in writing. RIP Mr. Mosher.
November 21, 2017
I received this Advanced Uncorrected Proof of a paperback version as a Goodreads Giveaway from St. Martin's Press.
I'd never heard of Howard Frank Mosher before I saw this book listed as a Goodreads Giveaway. I'm a born-and-raised New Englander, so a book of short stories about Vermont appealed to me. What a treat Points North turned out to be!
The 10 stories in Points North are set in Kingdom Common, a fictitious rural town on the Vermont/Canadian border. They're mostly told through the eyes of two brothers, Jim and Charlie Kinneson, the town judge and the newspaper editor. The Kinneson family has deep roots in Kingdom County, and some of the stories are set in the past.
These are mostly small stories, focusing on one or two characters. Many of them are odd and quirky and are a part of the fabric of the town. Although the stories may have a small focus, they often deal with the big changes to life in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, such as new dam and a wind farm. The stories are simultaneously sad and funny, with just a touch of magical realism. Most of all, they are very New England.
Of the 10 stories, there was only one that I didn't like. I'm so glad I stumbled across this book on Goodreads. I'll definitely reading more of Howard Frank Mosher's work.
I'd never heard of Howard Frank Mosher before I saw this book listed as a Goodreads Giveaway. I'm a born-and-raised New Englander, so a book of short stories about Vermont appealed to me. What a treat Points North turned out to be!
The 10 stories in Points North are set in Kingdom Common, a fictitious rural town on the Vermont/Canadian border. They're mostly told through the eyes of two brothers, Jim and Charlie Kinneson, the town judge and the newspaper editor. The Kinneson family has deep roots in Kingdom County, and some of the stories are set in the past.
These are mostly small stories, focusing on one or two characters. Many of them are odd and quirky and are a part of the fabric of the town. Although the stories may have a small focus, they often deal with the big changes to life in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, such as new dam and a wind farm. The stories are simultaneously sad and funny, with just a touch of magical realism. Most of all, they are very New England.
Of the 10 stories, there was only one that I didn't like. I'm so glad I stumbled across this book on Goodreads. I'll definitely reading more of Howard Frank Mosher's work.
February 22, 2018
Set in Kingdom Common, an area in Vermont bordering Canada, Mosher’s Points North shares stories of the Kinneson family. These tales, taking place over the course of a century, focus on various family members at different points in their lives. Themes include men searching for their lost loves, relatives at odds, family business, religion and nature, among others.
Published posthumously, this final book by Mosher will be enjoyed by many fans. For those new to the Northeast Kingdom chronicles, this may not serve as the best introduction. New readers may have trouble keeping track of the many Kinneson family members. The first story is hard to break into, but the tales do improve as the book continues. These non-chronological stories amble along, with a relaxed pace making it easier to put the book down at points than to continue reading. Points North will appeal to those interested in small town slice of life stories, family sagas, and general Mosher fans.
I received an advance uncorrected proof of this book as a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to the author/publisher for participating in the giveaway.
Published posthumously, this final book by Mosher will be enjoyed by many fans. For those new to the Northeast Kingdom chronicles, this may not serve as the best introduction. New readers may have trouble keeping track of the many Kinneson family members. The first story is hard to break into, but the tales do improve as the book continues. These non-chronological stories amble along, with a relaxed pace making it easier to put the book down at points than to continue reading. Points North will appeal to those interested in small town slice of life stories, family sagas, and general Mosher fans.
I received an advance uncorrected proof of this book as a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review. Thanks to the author/publisher for participating in the giveaway.
January 8, 2018
If you're not sure about short stories, try this. This is a beautifully crafted collection that never leaves you wanting. Mosher's Kingdom County, Vermont is a place that evokes such a powerful pull. What's wonderful is that he crosses socioeconomic lines and makes you feel the emotions of a wide range of people. The stories are linked by the Kinneson family. You won't like all the characters (you aren't meant to) and be aware that the time line shifts (remember it's not a novel, it's a short story collection) but that's how life works. Mosher has captured Vermont in a way that will remind you that a good writer can transcend place; many of the people you meet could be residents of your town. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.
November 1, 2017
Points North is actually a collection of stories set in Vermont, but amazingly and interestingly connected - although not directly - to each other. The author died just weeks after the book was finished, but had written over a dozen fiction and non-fiction books. His writing style in this book is both smooth and soothing, and I venture to suggest that his previous books are just as excellent.
The characters in Points North are blood-- and /or marriage-- related, sometimes by several generations, but all with the same ancestral beginnings no matter how convoluted - the Kinneson family. Some relations good, some not so good, some amusing, some rather hostile, but all worth reading and knowing their stories.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
The characters in Points North are blood-- and /or marriage-- related, sometimes by several generations, but all with the same ancestral beginnings no matter how convoluted - the Kinneson family. Some relations good, some not so good, some amusing, some rather hostile, but all worth reading and knowing their stories.
I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
November 22, 2017
This collection of stories were interesting as you meet the characters in Kingdom Vermont. The stories center around various members of the same family and their history as well as their interactions with nature and outsiders. It has the feel of a small town with all its quirks and follies. There always seems like there is more to the story than what Mosher tells us but it hides under the surface. The town folks always understand it though. Very nice collection of stories. Good for me for winning this in a Goodreads contest.
December 19, 2017
A wonderful collection of stories that center around the Kinneson family. I enjoyed reading this book. A great detail, plot, characters, ranging periods, conflict, issues, hope, truth, life. and understanding is what i discovered in this collection of stories from this book. A must read for any and all book lovers everywhere.
November 14, 2017
I hadn't read any of Howard Frank Mosher's work before receiving this book but now I will seek his other novels out to enjoy. I was drawn in to the tales of the Kinneson family and their life in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. Stories of generations of the Kinneson family intermingle into a charming tale of life in this quiet part of Vermont.
May 1, 2022
Never heard of Frank Mosher, so it seems he must be a cult. Ah, I'm always missing so many of them. So, his final work, I was in the mood for short stories, and I dug in. I admit I wasn't overwhelmed, but I enjoyed his creation of these characters in the Northeast Kingdom, a series of stories loosely joined, especially dealing with the Kinneson family, who's, since one is sheriff, another a judge, and an editor, seem to own the county, and it would be best to stay on their good side, which they have in abundance. The book reads like a collection from Lake Woebegone, taking Keillor's Minnesota sensibility and offering it a Vermont version, although Points North offers more thorns than Keillor's world. The characters can be cantankerous, curmudgeonly, but they are caught up in their lives and home, and it's a very believable world. Madge carries her sister's ashes in a mayo jar...the usual New England weird...what could Stephen King have done with that? Lonely Hearts is about a single man's small town frustrations, written in a very kind and wistful way. Madge, the thorn of the family, despises Thoreau. Rather glad I won't meet her in person. The characters play softball, fish (a LOT of fishing), and I note how foreigners come into the story. A Mexican family is praised for coming in and taking over a farm, the lonely man finds a Quebec woman...it seems like Mosher's people can't wait to give away their world to outsiders, and I detected a strong strain of liberal/progressive worldview, recalling a novel, Radio Free Vermont.
Read these books, and you can see why Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy win election after election there. Calvin Coolidge is long gone.
What Pliny Knew is the centerpiece, a novella dealing with Pliny, a black man who is a prominent citizen of this kingdom. He's windy and rather fabulous, a creation of Mosher's idea of literary virtue signaling. We get a love story tied up with slavery, Pliny an übermensch who is a minister, teacher, artist, singlehandedly builds a college, fought the KKK and slummed around with John Brown. He also married a white girl, while still searching for his lost black sweetheart, and when he dies, his skeleton is kept as a sacred object by the residents...it got to be a bit much, this worship of blacks. Mosher seems to have had the usual white guilt, and this story recalls Django more than Homer. Pliny seeking Lake Pontchartrain (the name of his black beloved) got pretty tiresome for me, especially his holding a (obviously liberal) congregation for hours as he retells his story. I wonder what it is about writers like Mosher that they need to deify blacks. It would seem BLM has made his worldview a little silly, and I'm sure if Mosher hadn't died, he'd have put them in a story. Guilt? But these people made their own kingdom to escape Vermont when it didn't abolish slavery fast enough. It was a p.c. fairy tale with as confused ending.
So, there were good stories and characters here and there, and the prose and Mosher's love for Vermont is very real. I'm kind of glad I never spent much time in his kingdom. Points North is time enough.
Read these books, and you can see why Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy win election after election there. Calvin Coolidge is long gone.
What Pliny Knew is the centerpiece, a novella dealing with Pliny, a black man who is a prominent citizen of this kingdom. He's windy and rather fabulous, a creation of Mosher's idea of literary virtue signaling. We get a love story tied up with slavery, Pliny an übermensch who is a minister, teacher, artist, singlehandedly builds a college, fought the KKK and slummed around with John Brown. He also married a white girl, while still searching for his lost black sweetheart, and when he dies, his skeleton is kept as a sacred object by the residents...it got to be a bit much, this worship of blacks. Mosher seems to have had the usual white guilt, and this story recalls Django more than Homer. Pliny seeking Lake Pontchartrain (the name of his black beloved) got pretty tiresome for me, especially his holding a (obviously liberal) congregation for hours as he retells his story. I wonder what it is about writers like Mosher that they need to deify blacks. It would seem BLM has made his worldview a little silly, and I'm sure if Mosher hadn't died, he'd have put them in a story. Guilt? But these people made their own kingdom to escape Vermont when it didn't abolish slavery fast enough. It was a p.c. fairy tale with as confused ending.
So, there were good stories and characters here and there, and the prose and Mosher's love for Vermont is very real. I'm kind of glad I never spent much time in his kingdom. Points North is time enough.
May 21, 2018
It is with sadness that we had to say goodbye to Howard Frank Mosher and his stories of the Kinneson family of the Northern Kingdom in Vermont. Howard Frank Mosher beautifully told through fourteen novels beautiful stories of family and hope and courage, and yes, oddities, of Vermont life. In this latest book, are a collection of stories that once again follow the Kinneson family through generations, with stories of disappearances, murder, mystery, romance, thievery and so much more. Each story will leave you thinking, "did that really happen?" and inevitably, with little research, you will find remnants of the truth from a story in the kingdom.
One story that struck me was a story that I recognized from my own hometown of Newbury, Vermont. The story was of a man, a successful farmer, who was pretty standoffish and hated by most of the town. When an incident between him and a distant cousin leads to him treating his cousin (well loved in town) badly, a lynch mob is stirred up. Squelched by the local sheriff, the incident is calmed until the morning when the farmer goes out to the barn and is never seen alive again. He's later found hanging from a nearby bridge, and no one in town will admit any knowledge of who may have hung the man. I was so excited to recognize this story, I looked up the newspaper articles about it and sent them to the rest of my book club.
Although I loved the stories of this book, I did not find it quite as refined as God's Kingdom. The book was in the process of being edited when Howard Frank Mosher died of cancer in 2017, so I can't help to wonder if there was more he had in mind. Having once heard him speak, I know that Mosher wrote all of his books in long hand on yellow legal pads, and one book, A Stranger In the Kingdom, went through 50 edits before it was completed. Regardless, get this book, and enjoy these wonderful tales of Vermont (but if you haven't done so, read God's Kingdom first!)
One story that struck me was a story that I recognized from my own hometown of Newbury, Vermont. The story was of a man, a successful farmer, who was pretty standoffish and hated by most of the town. When an incident between him and a distant cousin leads to him treating his cousin (well loved in town) badly, a lynch mob is stirred up. Squelched by the local sheriff, the incident is calmed until the morning when the farmer goes out to the barn and is never seen alive again. He's later found hanging from a nearby bridge, and no one in town will admit any knowledge of who may have hung the man. I was so excited to recognize this story, I looked up the newspaper articles about it and sent them to the rest of my book club.
Although I loved the stories of this book, I did not find it quite as refined as God's Kingdom. The book was in the process of being edited when Howard Frank Mosher died of cancer in 2017, so I can't help to wonder if there was more he had in mind. Having once heard him speak, I know that Mosher wrote all of his books in long hand on yellow legal pads, and one book, A Stranger In the Kingdom, went through 50 edits before it was completed. Regardless, get this book, and enjoy these wonderful tales of Vermont (but if you haven't done so, read God's Kingdom first!)
November 8, 2017
Set in the fictitious Kingdom County, a part of the northeastern corner of Vermont, the stories are filled with the many members of the Kinneson Family. They are ordinary men and women doing everyday things. A lawyer, an editor, a doctor, a sheriff, a mean tight-fisted entrepreneur, a gentle sweet-tempered handyman, a reverend, a huckster.
I loved Dr. Frannie who realized that the Kingdom was “a treasure chest of serious mental and emotional disorders” and James Kinneson who loved this silly young French girl. We only get snippets of them but it is enough to know that their relationship stays special as they age. We are treated to a broader knowledge of Charlie and James as the brother’s antics take up a portion of many of the stories. There is local legend and common sense. There is history. There is nature and nuisance plants which “Like the Kinnesons …was troublesome and enduring.””
Through the beautiful writing you always get the “sense of well-being that could be gained from going into the woods or out onto the remote ponds and river of the Kingdom”. Mosher’s writing fits the time and place and his characters become so real you feel as if you are part of the conversation. It is so sad that it has come to an end.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a copy of these wonderful stories.
I loved Dr. Frannie who realized that the Kingdom was “a treasure chest of serious mental and emotional disorders” and James Kinneson who loved this silly young French girl. We only get snippets of them but it is enough to know that their relationship stays special as they age. We are treated to a broader knowledge of Charlie and James as the brother’s antics take up a portion of many of the stories. There is local legend and common sense. There is history. There is nature and nuisance plants which “Like the Kinnesons …was troublesome and enduring.””
Through the beautiful writing you always get the “sense of well-being that could be gained from going into the woods or out onto the remote ponds and river of the Kingdom”. Mosher’s writing fits the time and place and his characters become so real you feel as if you are part of the conversation. It is so sad that it has come to an end.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a copy of these wonderful stories.
January 25, 2018
POINTS NORTH
by Howard Frank Mosher contains a series of short stories set in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Mosher, a beloved and extremely well-regarded writer, finished this collection shortly before his death in January, 2017. The stories focus on the Kinneson family and as such are full of true "characters," including strong woman like Miss Madge and Miss Mary Mae in "Sisters." Similar to parts of his recent (2015) novel, God’s Kingdom, these stories are a bit melancholy at times, dealing with change, especially death and its aftermath for family members. Like Mosher's other excellent writing,
POINTS NORTH
will prompt readers to slow down, to reflect, to appreciate nature, and to smile about small town relationships, ultimately thinking of all that is truly important. If you have not read his earlier work, let these stories be a brief introduction, but definitely pick up more titles by Howard Frank Mosher; my personal favorite is Northern Borders.
January 30, 2018
It is so good to be back among the citizens of Kingdom County in Howard Frank Mosher's final book--a collection of short stories that magnificently brings to life all the characters that have appeared through the years in his other works. Although we have seen these folks before, the stories are new and fresh and enthralling, sometimes bittersweet, often portraying the rugged life of these hardy souls in the frontier between Vermont and Quebec. Parts are laugh-out-loud funny, others up-to-the-minute politically, and all are filled with Howard's distinctive dialect. Knowing that he worked on this as he faced terminal cancer, the theme of death and endings seemed threaded through many of the stories, but it never overwhelmed the message. In the final story, one character thinks "Stories...So many stories. In the end, stories and love were what you were left with." Thankfully, we have one more set of stories from Howard, and they are ones that need to be savored again. (Tale for Three Counties author, 2004)
June 10, 2018
I have read all of Howard's books and enjoyed his friendship through the internet and by phone. He was kind when I asked for a blurb for several of my novels, books I thought he would like and could relate to. I generally don't read short stories anymore because their endings leave me wondering why I spent my time reading them. This book's stories left me with a grin, a tear, or a nod of my head which meant I could understand it. The people, the town, the circumstances, the endings were right with the way life works, and that's the way Howard wrote. He could take the simplest events and turn them into a story that people enjoyed reading. They are for reading anywhere, anytime. Enjoy as I did, Howard's last book. I bought and paid for this book and will give copies to friends and family.
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