A Book of Reasons

by John Vernon

"History in its minute particulars touches us all, and in the least expected ways." Every family has its odd character, the one member who never seems right with the world. In his brilliant pairing of family history with the history of civilization, John Vernon discovers the extraordinary sources of ordinary things in the life of his reclusive brother, Paul. When Paul died and John was charged with settling his affairs, he came face to face with a life he had never suspected. His brother's house in southern New Hampshire was in a state of squalid, shocking piled high with a lifetime of trash, unheated and decrepit, pitifully unlivable. An assembly worker and an amateur inventor, Paul had managed to keep his sad and strange world hidden. The story of this troubled soul is at once fascinating and tragic. And it cries out for reasons. Why does a childhood full of promise turn wrong? Why do we clutter our lives with things? How do we make and understand our world? Vernon seeks answers in the most unexpected places. Buying a hammer and thermometer at Wal-Mart, that icon of consumerism, inspires a short history of tools and the discovery of mercury. Paul's wake occasions an investigation of blood circulation and embalming. Vernon voyages through science and physiology, culture and mythology, on a search "for a way to comprehend a life that left behind not splendid monuments but ordinary wreckage." The result is a book of reasons for his brother's way of life, reasons for his own response to Paul's death. Bringing to bear the narrative powers that distinguished his acclaimed historical novels Peter Doyle and All for Love, Vernon links the story of one odd individual to the surprising and irregular upheavals of history. In the process, he discovers how reasons, for all of us, are one means of learning to accept things that can never be explained.

Genres: Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published September 23, 1999

Reviews

[Maureen Stanton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely quiet book in which the author examines his brother's life through objects he finds in his packrat brother's house after he dies. He tries to understand who is brother was, come to grips with his somewhat estranged relationship with (or at least disaffection for) his brother, while the focus on objects subtly reminds us of how objects become part of our identity, and how they are not part of us at all, but in fact exist beyond our lives.

[Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir tells the story of Vernon's discoveries in his late brother Paul's house. Paul had been a recluse for years along with attempts at making inventions. Vernon, while fixing up Paul's house, finds different objects and ponders each one and its history into great depth. I found this book to be very interesting as Vernon goes into the history of different objects however sometimes he tends to rant and go a bit off on a tangent.

[Lizzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the reviewers of Ghosty Men said it was the 2nd best book about hoarding she'd ever read. I had to ask her what was the first, and it was this book. The author inherits his much-older brother's house and discovers he'd been living there in unbelievable squalor. The book is a meditation about objects and their significance, and about his brother's life. It's good.

[Hans Weyandt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic memoir of his recluse brother he hardly knew in adulthood until his death. In between the personal memories are short essays on items he found in his brother's house.

Moving and informative.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best book I've ever read about compulsive hoarding.

[Katharine Holden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing. Pulls you in.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who would have thought that a novel about tending to a dead brother's belongings would be so rich and full of great surprises...not me. I loved this book.

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very moving book about a man's struggle to understand his late brother and his decline into hoarding. The author is an academic and he ruminates on his family background and his brother's choices and relates them to the history of scientific thought. It is fascinating to be inside his head as he uses his background in the history of knowledge to explore and find meaning in personal tragedy.

This was the last book I read in 2020 and maybe the best. Something about his intense personal experiences seen through the lens of his knowledge of what used to be called natural history was just very compelling for me. And I think that the "for me" part is important; this book will either resonate with you or it won't. I think it is a love it or hate it kind of book. I really loved this book.

[LINDA · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up at random, and I enjoyed reading the book.

The author goes off on many tangents and I found most to be interesting and some to be boring and unnecessary. I liked that this book made me think, his writing is peppered with bizarre facts and information. For example: "Carl Sagan tells us, human beings lived outdoors for 99.9 percent of human history, following game and crops." No wonder it feels so unnatural for me to be indoors!

I especially liked his inclusion of the story as to why the indians have no metal tools, a story from the Kutenais in northern Idaho -"Two boys who visit the spirit of the Sun Dance return with gifts in two boxes, which they've been cautioned not to open until they've walked for three whole days and the sun is at its zenith. At first the boxes feel light as feathers. But as the third day approaches, they get heavier and heavier. When the boys can hardly carry them, they rip them open and find, to their dismay, strangely shaped pieces of metal- embryos of tools. They've been seen before fully gestated-aborted, in a sense. There is however one metal knife, the only tool fully ripened in the miscarried gift. Now every time they use it, they'll remember. They wanted the gift of tools, and they wanted their mobility and innocence, but they couldn't have both."

I would like to find two of the books mentioned within this book: "The American Woman's Home" and Christine Fredericks " Household Engineering: Scientific Management in the Home.

The book examines life and it's purpose, and the author's brother's death and the author's subsequent dealings with his brothers remaining hoarded belongings, dead pets, house, etc. The experience allowed or more accurately forced him to delve into the specific meaning of his brother's life.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reflective memoir about Vernon's older brother Paul and the meaning of a life. The book was loosely held together around the literal cleanup of this brother's life (his rundown house) and I appreciated Vernon's historical reflections more than his scientific ones which seemed to wander farther afield from the books central ideas. In the end the language kept me going and its phrases like this (and not the last line) that push it to four stars from three:

"Reasons for my brother's way of life and death, reasons for my response to his death. I am aware that any search for reasons in our time has a lot to contend with. For one thing, the gratifications of consumer technology have infantilized us all. Our interests are mostly passing, and we satisfy them with distracted attention, as unconcious of reasons and their historical roots as of the farthest galaxy. For another, our most characteristic science, the one that appears to best express the spirit of the age - chaos theory - implies a universe so random and complext that we can never know who or what is responsible for anything. Chaos theory purees causes, dissolving such notions as responsibility. Reasons, by contrast, assign responsibility...." (xii)

"From closets and cupboards, from forgotten shelves and drawers, from boxes in the basement, in the space below the stairs, from old dressers, file cabinets, and utility shelves, from glove compartments in our cars, from trash cans and trunks, came the rattle of chains, flowed the cold grease of things, droned the machinery of ownership, the hoarse buzz of production - crawled the mortal rot of possessions." (255)

[Ruth Ann]

Own a signed copy - compliments of publisher
Purchased at Friends of Loveland Library used book sale (April 2017).