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Disappearances
Winner of the New England Book Award, Howard Frank Mosher's endearing first novel is both a heroic adventure and a thrilling coming-of-age story. It is the memorable tale of a young man named Wild Bill Bonhomme, his larger-than-life father, Quebec Bill, and their whiskey-smuggling exploits along the Vermont-Canada border in 1932. On an epic journey through the wilderness, Bill and his father encounter a cast of wild characters and live out magical escapades as they carve their way into legend.
255 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
100 people are currently reading
532 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 57 reviews
September 4, 2022
This is a tale of bigger than life characters in 1932 Vermont along the Canadian border. Quebec Bill Bonhomme and his son Wild Bill are on a canoe trip to Canada along with two other crazy characters It is during prohibition and they are after whiskey. Wonderful characters and wonderful father/son moments. 4.5 stars. A bit confusing at the end.
October 5, 2009
There are people in my life, and in my family, who act this way. Maybe you have them too - they a re a bit crazy, but just charming enogh to hornswoggle you into doing something which you either laugh about together forever; or - - - -
anyway, having lived in Northern New England for close to thirty years, and having tried to explain it to people, I can tlel you that this writer has got it down. I could smell the wind of a Northern New England spring when I read this.....
anyway, having lived in Northern New England for close to thirty years, and having tried to explain it to people, I can tlel you that this writer has got it down. I could smell the wind of a Northern New England spring when I read this.....
March 4, 2018
I'm not entirely sure what I just read. I mean, it might be because I've been up for like a day reading in the readathon ...but I'm confused. What started as a wild adventure and coming of age story (That I've become used to with Moshers work) and suddenly turned into.....something like Big Fish. I'm so confused. I mean I definitely enjoyed it. The characters were awesome, there's a lot of humor.... But the time jumps and the sheer.... craziness were fairly confusing.
Like I'm from Vermont....I know weird shit goes on up there. There's Glastonbury and the Triangle and Champ, and all kinds of ghostly legends. But this....this takes the cake.
I'll have to reread this when I have more brainpower and have slept.
I guess it's a four. I was deff emersed and entertained. I'm just left....really confused by the ending.
Like I'm from Vermont....I know weird shit goes on up there. There's Glastonbury and the Triangle and Champ, and all kinds of ghostly legends. But this....this takes the cake.
I'll have to reread this when I have more brainpower and have slept.
I guess it's a four. I was deff emersed and entertained. I'm just left....really confused by the ending.
January 26, 2016
After a slow start, this coming of age tall tale, set in a remote part of New England during the depression, grabbed my attention. I was unable to put the book down until the end. Too absurd at times to appreciate, nevertheless I found that Mosher crafted memorable settings, unforgettable characters, and an exciting adventure that is both horrible and hilarious.
April 11, 2012
An absolutely fabulous read. While many of the characters are bigger than life, the story is believeable. Funny, scary, hair-raising and also a tender tale of the relationship of a father and son. If you know Vermont at all -- or if you don't but can imagine it -- you will enjoy this book. It's memory lingers and warms me every time I think of it.
January 7, 2013
It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that this is a tall tale, and the events shouldn't be taken as 100 percent literal. Once I did, I was able to just relax and love this book. I'm fairly certain that the only instance of me shedding actual tears in 2012 was when I read the passage here that recounts the final talk between the father and the son around the campfire near the end.
September 17, 2020
An interesting book about about a family living in Vermont near the Canadian border. The book focuses on the father, Quebec Bill Bonhomme, and his son, Wild Bill. The story mainly takes place in 1932 when Wild Bill goes on whiskey run with his father and Uncle. Their adventure is wild, deadly and mystical. Running beside this adventure, is the telling of the history and the future of this strange family. This family that continues to disappear.
January 24, 2015
I haven't thought about (let alone read) tall tales since about the 3rd grade. This was a great entry back into the genre. While it's not the kind of story I would naturally be inclined to read (wilderness, Canadian history, father/son story...not really my thing!), I massively enjoyed the storytelling and the characters along the journey. Just when you think it can't get any crazier, you realize you're only a third of the way through and there are still lots more crazy antics ahead!
I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fantastical, clever, almost-plausible wilderness adventure story. And if that's not what you're looking for, maybe it's worth trying something new : )
I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fantastical, clever, almost-plausible wilderness adventure story. And if that's not what you're looking for, maybe it's worth trying something new : )
February 20, 2012
Initially, this tall tale was amusing and entertaining--over-the-top hijinks or whiskey runners in northern Vermont and across the Canadian border, but after about 2/3 of the book, it wore thin. Inebriated monks, backwoods criminals with cannons, ridiculous feats of strength and endurance.
March 17, 2020
This first book was just a bit much for me... in the later book "Northern Borders," which was extraordinary, he toned down the fantastical characters -- who were still wonderfully quirky and charismatic -- but in Disappearances, they're just too much.
June 29, 2018
Some of the episodes in this novel were crazy! I loved the characters, I felt like I was in Vermont and close to the border. I would most likely get another title or two to read by Mosher.
July 8, 2017
How to describe Disappearances by Howard Frank Mosher! Tall Tale? Coming of Age? Historical Fiction? Magical Realism? Or just a young man's fantastical reminisces of participating in an historic event with his father and uncle one fateful weekend in the promised spring with one last snow fall - "the snow that brings the snow".
No one dies in the Bon Homme (Goodman) family, they simply disappear. William, also known as Quebec Bill, leaves his family and travels the country and when he returns they are just gone. He searches for years to no avail until he finds himself a wife and starts his own family not far from where his nomadic family once lived, next door to his Aunt Cordelia, the only blood relative left in sight.
Despite being desperately poor, William, an optimist, sees the good in everything, giving everybody the benefit of the doubt with a rollicking sense of humor and a search for fun. Armed with his fiddle, he mesmerizes everyone in the Vermont town, enjoying their company. William collects misfits, both animals and people, generously inviting them into his home. He truly loves his wife, rescuing her from a Montreal Convent where she eventually returns.
Circumstances during the depression have left him penniless, necessitating a whisky run to earn enough cash in Prohibition America to feed his wife's prized cows. Bringing along his son - Wild Bill, his brother in law - Uncle Henry, and Rat - one of the misfits with a talent for farming, their hijinks up along the coast between Vermont and Canada are the stuff of legends including the antagonist, Carcajou (Indian for wolverine), who keeps showing up at inopportune times, despite their concerted attempts to kill him dead.
Each new escapade beats out the last, as they wreck havoc along the way from the destruction of Uncle Henry's cherished car to the sinking of a railroad locomotive to the crashing of a small plane, with numerous exploits in between. The wild behaviors continue throughout the novel leaving the reader confused and unable to predict what could possibly happen next.
Don't look for sanity, just hang on to your hat and enjoy the ride. Perhaps this tale is simply an exaggeration found in the mind of a young boy who idolized his dad or maybe it's a matter of symbolism where the evil Carcajou is the conscience which William seems to lack. There's even a rumbling that the plot reflects the trauma which comes at the end of childhood.
Bits and pieces of various shenanigans are exposed consisting of past and future events including some marked similarities between Great Grandfather Rene and Henry, Wild Bill's son. Henry has the touch of absurd, talking to the "shadow" of Aunt Cordelia, trying to raise a Saber Tooth Tiger, and eventually defecting to Canada when his number gets called for the draft to Viet Nam. In this way he, too, disappears from Wild Bill's life, just as the rest of the family moves on, both literally and figuratively. Remember, don't think too deeply, just enjoy.
A beautifully written regional novel which helps the reader visualize the New England countryside, this is just one of many books by this author about the residents of Kingdom County, a place of wonders or, as Aunt Cordelia might say, where one discovers the extraordinary from the ordinary. Four stars.
This review also appears on my blog, Gotta Read.
No one dies in the Bon Homme (Goodman) family, they simply disappear. William, also known as Quebec Bill, leaves his family and travels the country and when he returns they are just gone. He searches for years to no avail until he finds himself a wife and starts his own family not far from where his nomadic family once lived, next door to his Aunt Cordelia, the only blood relative left in sight.
Despite being desperately poor, William, an optimist, sees the good in everything, giving everybody the benefit of the doubt with a rollicking sense of humor and a search for fun. Armed with his fiddle, he mesmerizes everyone in the Vermont town, enjoying their company. William collects misfits, both animals and people, generously inviting them into his home. He truly loves his wife, rescuing her from a Montreal Convent where she eventually returns.
Circumstances during the depression have left him penniless, necessitating a whisky run to earn enough cash in Prohibition America to feed his wife's prized cows. Bringing along his son - Wild Bill, his brother in law - Uncle Henry, and Rat - one of the misfits with a talent for farming, their hijinks up along the coast between Vermont and Canada are the stuff of legends including the antagonist, Carcajou (Indian for wolverine), who keeps showing up at inopportune times, despite their concerted attempts to kill him dead.
Each new escapade beats out the last, as they wreck havoc along the way from the destruction of Uncle Henry's cherished car to the sinking of a railroad locomotive to the crashing of a small plane, with numerous exploits in between. The wild behaviors continue throughout the novel leaving the reader confused and unable to predict what could possibly happen next.
Don't look for sanity, just hang on to your hat and enjoy the ride. Perhaps this tale is simply an exaggeration found in the mind of a young boy who idolized his dad or maybe it's a matter of symbolism where the evil Carcajou is the conscience which William seems to lack. There's even a rumbling that the plot reflects the trauma which comes at the end of childhood.
Bits and pieces of various shenanigans are exposed consisting of past and future events including some marked similarities between Great Grandfather Rene and Henry, Wild Bill's son. Henry has the touch of absurd, talking to the "shadow" of Aunt Cordelia, trying to raise a Saber Tooth Tiger, and eventually defecting to Canada when his number gets called for the draft to Viet Nam. In this way he, too, disappears from Wild Bill's life, just as the rest of the family moves on, both literally and figuratively. Remember, don't think too deeply, just enjoy.
A beautifully written regional novel which helps the reader visualize the New England countryside, this is just one of many books by this author about the residents of Kingdom County, a place of wonders or, as Aunt Cordelia might say, where one discovers the extraordinary from the ordinary. Four stars.
This review also appears on my blog, Gotta Read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 13, 2024
"Looking down at the gray-toned landscape of north and south of the short stretch of border where so much of our history had transpired, I knew much that I had not known a week ago. I knew that the country below us was not only a hard place to live in but a treacherous place as well, full of unexpected and unavoidable horrors, including some that had nothing to do with furious winds and deep cold water and swamps and mountains. Yet despite my first clear vision of the darkness in which the human heart is enshrouded, I knew that my father was right when he put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Bill, ain't all that down there the most wonderful thing you ever see?'
I must have been very tired because I found myself fighting back tears again; but I was not going to deny the truth of my vision, the truth on which my father had based his life, just because I was tired or scared or too proud to be seen crying.
'Ain't it wonderful Wild Bill?'
'Yes,' I said, crying. 'It is.'"
The story of a land that doesn't exist anymore, and of a people we only read about in legend. Vermont is the most beautiful place in the whole, wide world.
I must have been very tired because I found myself fighting back tears again; but I was not going to deny the truth of my vision, the truth on which my father had based his life, just because I was tired or scared or too proud to be seen crying.
'Ain't it wonderful Wild Bill?'
'Yes,' I said, crying. 'It is.'"
The story of a land that doesn't exist anymore, and of a people we only read about in legend. Vermont is the most beautiful place in the whole, wide world.
March 20, 2017
Mosher died recently and I had never read a book of his, so I started with Disappearances. It's one I had to diagram the genealogy for in order to keep track of all the William Goodmans or Bonhommes (too often with ghostly wives who seem little more than wombs for new Williams). The book contains the kinds of odd phrases that sound pithy ("this is the snow that takes the snow") but no matter how I work them over in my mind, they resonate not. However, there are many other phrases I liked, such as "my deliverance from the cold gray existence of children without a past" - reminding me of today's fascination with DNA genealogy. The character Cordelia has several good ones, my favorite being "never regard what is ordinary without perceiving in it the extraordinary". This is good advice. Cordelia, really the only well-drawn female character, stands like the six-foot tent pole she is among all those disappearing Williams, covering a century of time, learning while young that all is repetitive and an illusion, but not without merit or worth studying. I did like her. The whisky runs that form most of the novel read like something between Oh Brother Where Art Thou and Smokey and the Bandit and hopefully did well as a movie, kooky as they were. Also sprinkled around were folksy things like feeding milk to pumpkins and rescuing a trout frozen in the river. This book left me intrigued but slightly confused. Next up will be Where the Rivers Run North.
November 9, 2016
What is it that haunts us? What is it that chases us, never letting up. How can an overly active positive imagination hide that which chases us? These are the delicious questions that I leave with after reading this book. Mr. Mosher treats us to an amazing cast of characters. Yet, no one is free from being pursued by his past, as seen through both Quebec Bill and Wild Bill. As readers, we get to choose what we do with that.
I enjoyed the structure of the novel, which centered around one specific journey. However, we are taken on side journey's along the way to the past and to the future. These side journey's were the first sign that there was something more at stake than the successful completion of the central journey.
In the end, this story will stay with me for a while, as I sort out some of the questions that the story asks.
I enjoyed the structure of the novel, which centered around one specific journey. However, we are taken on side journey's along the way to the past and to the future. These side journey's were the first sign that there was something more at stake than the successful completion of the central journey.
In the end, this story will stay with me for a while, as I sort out some of the questions that the story asks.
July 14, 2021
A father, son, and uncle in 1932 try to run illegal whiskey from Canada to Vermont. In the process, they burn a barn, firebomb a car, run half the bootleg liquor over a cliff in another and that is just the beginning. The book reads like an action movie (it was filmed in 2008), and reads like a lyrical essay, magical realism, family legend, and fable. All the characters are weird or funny or ghost-like. There is no better book to describe the love of a father and son and what people will go through for each other. There are chapters where the son sees all the physical and personality traits in HIS son in later years. (as you might expect, they end up with no liquor in the end).
November 23, 2018
A story containing wild characters and a way of life that does not exist anymore along the Vermont/Quebec border. The story ebbs and flows between some of the most wholesome observations of place and family you could ask for and some of the most unsavory acts a person can commit. This is definitely an entertaining read about prohibition era shenanigans in an otherwise forgotten part of the American/Canadian landscape.
February 23, 2018
Wow! This rollicking story about Quebec Bill Bonhomme's whiskey-smuggling adventures really grabbed me. It reads like a tall tale, but also imparts true life lessons and an emotional punch as well. Can't wait to watch the movie (even though I'm not a big fan of Kris Kristofferson). If it's half as good as the book, it will be worth seeing!
November 12, 2023
Ce livre est un vrai plaisir de lecture! C'est une espère d'épopée western à la sauce "terroir", avec des relents de "Cent ans de solitude". Incroyable mais vrai: ça coexiste très bien!
Québec Bill Bonhomme Par Howard Frank Mosher | Littérature | Roman canadien et étranger | leslibraires.ca | Acheter des livres papier et numériques en ligne
Québec Bill Bonhomme Par Howard Frank Mosher | Littérature | Roman canadien et étranger | leslibraires.ca | Acheter des livres papier et numériques en ligne
April 16, 2025
Book Club Book: Vermont Author
The characters in this book were completely CRAZY and also slightly scary. This was definitely a tall-tale . There were some funny parts that I enjoyed but mostly I was just like "WTH?!?!?!?" Also not really sure I exactly understand what happened at the end.........
Apparently there is a movie based on this book - not sure I want to watch it lol.
The characters in this book were completely CRAZY and also slightly scary. This was definitely a tall-tale . There were some funny parts that I enjoyed but mostly I was just like "WTH?!?!?!?" Also not really sure I exactly understand what happened at the end.........
Apparently there is a movie based on this book - not sure I want to watch it lol.
January 23, 2023
This was a wild one. Great characters as usual in a Mosher book, and wild adventures.
January 25, 2023
Loved the Vermont and Canadian settings. The story was a wild ride..my first Howard Frank Mosher book.
October 7, 2023
tf was That bro
May 22, 2024
A tall tale and thoroughly entertaining.
June 9, 2024
I give 6* to the underlieing comic novel, which was better than a "Confederacy of Dunces", in my opinion. And then I take a * away for the incoherent supernatural disappearances of the title.
January 5, 2016
Disappearances is simultaneously more impressive and less impressive than I would have expected, for being Howard Frank Mosher's first book. I've read Mosher before, but not since high school, and at the time he was my favorite "Vermont" writer. (Vermont is where I grew up).
It is well-written, I'd say, if you look at each chapter/vignette separately. But once you stack all these vignettes together, they get very tiring. The book sometimes felt like a collection of unrelated stories, entertaining but tedious to read, each adding very little to overall plot or characterization. However, zooming out one more level, the overall arc of the story was magnificent. The last 10 pages alone, which tied together the rest of the story, bumped my rating from a 3 or 3.5 stars to a solid four stars. I just wish there had been slightly fewer tall tales, and slightly more of the meaningful ending material, spread out over a greater length of the story.
The unforgettable thing about this book are all of the wacky characters. They're entertaining, all of them have hilarious, wildly exaggerated misadventures, but they were rarely funny in a way that made me laugh out loud, and sometimes I felt like the unbelievability of the stories kept me from connecting with the characters on a deeper level.
One of the most masterfully presented characters in this story is
The title, at first mysterious, ends up being the central mystery of the story.
Worth mentioning again: I loved the end of this book, for what it made me realize about the whole book. The father-son relationship depicted in these pages is movingly written, the importance of it crystallizing only at the very end. "I could only stand at the window and stare out at Uncle Henry and Rat and the hay with the indefinable oppression of the heart that I would wake with and live with and go to sleep with for the next year".
It is well-written, I'd say, if you look at each chapter/vignette separately. But once you stack all these vignettes together, they get very tiring. The book sometimes felt like a collection of unrelated stories, entertaining but tedious to read, each adding very little to overall plot or characterization. However, zooming out one more level, the overall arc of the story was magnificent. The last 10 pages alone, which tied together the rest of the story, bumped my rating from a 3 or 3.5 stars to a solid four stars. I just wish there had been slightly fewer tall tales, and slightly more of the meaningful ending material, spread out over a greater length of the story.
The unforgettable thing about this book are all of the wacky characters. They're entertaining, all of them have hilarious, wildly exaggerated misadventures, but they were rarely funny in a way that made me laugh out loud, and sometimes I felt like the unbelievability of the stories kept me from connecting with the characters on a deeper level.
One of the most masterfully presented characters in this story is
The title, at first mysterious, ends up being the central mystery of the story.
Worth mentioning again: I loved the end of this book, for what it made me realize about the whole book. The father-son relationship depicted in these pages is movingly written, the importance of it crystallizing only at the very end. "I could only stand at the window and stare out at Uncle Henry and Rat and the hay with the indefinable oppression of the heart that I would wake with and live with and go to sleep with for the next year".
February 10, 2017
Here's the official review:
Winner of the New England Book Award, Howard Frank Mosher’s endearing first novel is both a heroic adventure and a thrilling coming-of-age story. It is the memorable tale of a young man named Wild Bill Bonhomme, his larger-than-life father, Quebec Bill, and their whiskey-smuggling exploits along the Vermont-Canada border in 1932. On an epic journey through the wilderness, Bill and his father encounter a cast of wild characters—and live out magical escapades as they carve their way into legend.
Here's my brief review:
No Go. Pretty awful. Very dated. I felt like I was being dragged through a silent movie with the organist in the theater balcony diabolically playing the chase scene while I, the damsel in distress, was tied to the RR tracks forced to take the next dose of adventure reading. I found the story(s) quaint, and boring in a fantasmagoric way. Lots of big words were crammed into the authentic (I guess) dialog which made it all seem contrived. I never finished the book. It was novel-reading-torture. I felt the same way as a kid when I watched the Three Stooges assault each other with mindless poking, and rapid fire talking. Slapstick comedy film...slapstick comedy novel.
Winner of the New England Book Award, Howard Frank Mosher’s endearing first novel is both a heroic adventure and a thrilling coming-of-age story. It is the memorable tale of a young man named Wild Bill Bonhomme, his larger-than-life father, Quebec Bill, and their whiskey-smuggling exploits along the Vermont-Canada border in 1932. On an epic journey through the wilderness, Bill and his father encounter a cast of wild characters—and live out magical escapades as they carve their way into legend.
Here's my brief review:
No Go. Pretty awful. Very dated. I felt like I was being dragged through a silent movie with the organist in the theater balcony diabolically playing the chase scene while I, the damsel in distress, was tied to the RR tracks forced to take the next dose of adventure reading. I found the story(s) quaint, and boring in a fantasmagoric way. Lots of big words were crammed into the authentic (I guess) dialog which made it all seem contrived. I never finished the book. It was novel-reading-torture. I felt the same way as a kid when I watched the Three Stooges assault each other with mindless poking, and rapid fire talking. Slapstick comedy film...slapstick comedy novel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2010
Holy crap, I finished it. Okay, not a big deal to people out there in cyberland, but understand it took, and this is a total guess, nearly three years to finish this book. In contemporary literature, Mosher ranks near the top for me as I might say in my reviews for all his books. This one, if I could fractionalize it, was top-quality for perhaps 3/5 of the story. The fourth fifth seemed to be written while on some sort of little orange barrel-shaped pill. Mosher lost me. It spiraled into a supernatural chase scene that was too over-the-top Hollywood action filmish for me. Then, the last 1/5 settles back down into an atmospheric coming-of-age resolution. The main tale deals with a young man who idolizes his whiskey-running father even through a heist of a bottlegging run (if I remember correctly) across Canadian-U.S. borders. A good story that got WAY off track even though the prime villain, Carcajou, was a superb metaphor for an inescapable conscience.
July 21, 2013
This is a classic adventure type of tale about a boy and his father. Quebec Bill Bonhomme is an eccentric man who lives life somewhat recklessly. He calls his son Wild Bill but the boy is the complete opposite of his name. In an effort to save the family farm, the father, son, and an uncle set out to run some whiskey. They meet some people at a convalescent home, monks, and some very dangerous whiskey runners. All sorts of mayhem ensues and just when you think the group is out of the woods, another problem occurs. The amount of whiskey that survives each debacle gets smaller and smaller. I thoroughly enjoyed all of this book except the ending. Mosher's novels are full of larger than life characters and the setting is always important to the story and well described.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews