Go with Me: A Novel (P.S.) [Paperback]

Castle Freeman (Author)

Book Description

Series: P.S. | Publication Date: February 17, 2009

A young woman recently relocated to a tiny Vermont logging town, Lillian is menaced by a mysterious stalker named Blackway. This one man—who kills her cat, forces her boyfriend to flee the state in terror, and silently threatens her very existence—is a force little understood by the local figures to whom she turns for help. Yet, in this spare and powerful tale, Lillian enlists the powerful brute Nate and the curmudgeonly Lester to take the fight to her tormenter as a raggedy quartet of town elders ponders her likely fate. With simple strength and extraordinary force, Go with Me is a riveting modern fable of good provoked to resist evil.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Like its young heroine, Lillian, Freeman's trim powerhouse is a pistol. The novelist and Old Farmer's Almanac essayist sets this story of grim purpose in a rural Vermont of logging, lumber mills and Lost Towns beyond the reach of the law. Threatened by the locally notorious villain Blackway, who has smashed her car window and killed her cat, Lillian turns to the sheriff. Unable to offer her legal protection, he sends her to a derelict sawmill where the wheelchair-bound Whizzer Boot holds court to a Greek chorus-like circle of beer-drinking locals. When Lillian refuses to leave town in the face of Blackway's threats, Whizzer assigns fearless young Nate and crafty old Lester to go with her to find him. Over the course of a single day, they venture deep into the sparsely inhabited territory and outlaw criminality of the Lost Towns. Knowing that as they get close they got to be ready to go all the way through, they meet menace and violence head-on. Nate's brawn, Lester's cunning and Lillian's stolid determination lead them to a late-night confrontation with Blackway that is as startling as it is inevitable. Freeman's beautifully cadenced dialogue is rich with humor, philosophic depth and a near-mythic sensibility. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“Like its young heroine, Lillian, Freeman’s trim powerhouse is ‘a pistol.’ …Freeman’s beautifully cadenced dialogue is rich with humor, philosophic depth and a near-mythic sensibility.” (Publishers Weekly )

“Castle Freeman Jr. packs more story into 160 pages than more famous authors could fit into twice as many...Go With Me is a dialogue-driven, take-the-law-into-your-own-hands story that is slick with humor and musings on pop culture, aging and American women.” (USA Today )

“A fast, memorable read gooey with atmosphere, Go With Me is a gem that sparkles with sly insight and cuts like a knife.” (Boston Globe )

“Freeman’s ear is flawless. The dialogue is taut, funny, wise, poignant, deceptively simple and only on occasion profane. . . . The description is astute and often beautiful.” (The Times-Argus (VT)The Times-Argus (VT)The Times-Argus (Vermont) )

“What a spiffy little yarn, loose and funny and, at a few key junctures, righteously bloody...The book takes just a few hours to read--about the running time of the swell indie movie someone should make from this offbeat charmer.” (Entertainment Weekly )

“This gem of a novel by Vermont author Freeman may bring him the larger audience he so richly deserves…Freeman turns this fablelike story into a surprisingly suspenseful showdown. And the artful cutaways to the old-timers’ priceless, extremely funny conversations add another level of richness to the tale.” (Booklist )

“One of the smartest novels we’ve read in a long time.” (Time Out Chicago )

“In this compact little gem of a novel two unlikely heroes help a stubborn woman track down a villainous bully. It’s a tale of love and justice and it’s beautifully constructed, with lightness and with expertise, out of north country conversations so quietly funny that every page brings a smile.” (Reeve Lindbergh, author of Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age--and Other Unexpected Adventures )

“There is a clear moral arc to this storyline, and suspense too. But GO WITH ME is also a literary novel, with echoes of “Deliverance” and Cormac McCarthy...Mr. Freeman adroitly captures the feel of played-out Vermont towns and people, and his dialogue has a terse, almost humorous, cadence.” (Wall Street Journal )

“[An] elegant little thriller about cunning versus cruelty . . . [a] pure delight, thanks to Freeman’s streamlined storytelling, dead-on dialogue, and lyrical descriptions of the bleak, woodsy landscape. This is a meticulous New England miniature, with not a wasted word.” (O magazine )

“Castle...knows the territory well here, whether of the woods or the human heart. Go With Me is a fine testament to his considerable talents.” (Hartford Courant )

“GO WITH ME ambles along with that … mixture of corny irony and shrewd wisdom… These guys have a sweetness and slyness about them that’s affecting. ‘They don’t change,’ Freeman writes. ‘Time doesn’t pass for them.’ You could say the same for good storytelling like this.” (Washington Post )

“This unusual little gem of a book is part comic romp and part nail-biting thriller...Castle Freeman writes with both wit and a deep understanding of the human psyche, and he does not cheat us out of a dramatic climax.” (The Guardian )

“Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy...Go With Me is at once wry, primal, epic and impossible to put down. I’m telling you the same thing I told the writer Richard Price: You must read this.” (Charles Bock, bestselling author of BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN, on NPR's "You Must Read This" )

“...the best mystery you missed in 2008...Tense and funny, “Go With Me” glides on pitch-perfect dialogue and a humdinger finale. (Cleveland Plain Dealer )

“This nimble thriller is the literary equivalent of a fierce bantamweight fighter: Short but muscular and lightning quick, it packs a surprising punch . . . Freeman has a flawless ear for dialogue and a sharp eye for quirky detail . . . Superb.” (People (Critic's Choice) )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (February 17, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061671851
• ISBN-13: 978-0061671852
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #766,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little gem, January 21, 2008

By 

sb-lynn (Santa Barbara, California United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Go With Me: A Novel (Hardcover)

What a little gem.

Summary, no spoilers.

This is the story of a young woman, who refuses to back down and leave after the town bully torments her, and runs off her boyfriend. She seeks the help of the sheriff, who directs her to a colorful group of locals from this small Vermont town. They send her off with two of their own - a wily old man, and a big strapping young guy who works with him.

The action alternates between the girl and the 2 men seeking out the villain, and the small group that had sent them off. The latter group serves as the Greek chorus, and their dialogue is funny, profound, and clever. It's a neat trick.

I highly recommend this novel. It's short, but there's not a wasted word. It feels like a much bigger book. It was very suspenseful, and I was tense and nervous as I got near the end. When I turned the last page I felt satisfied.

Highly recommended.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving The Knights Errant Of Medieval Europe to Vermont, July 6, 2008

By 

prisrob "pris," (New England USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Go With Me: A Novel (Hardcover)

"Chivalry isn't dead; it has just retreated to the backwoods of Vermont. Far beyond the range of leaf-peepers, quaint B&Bs and wealthy liberals lie millions of acres of dark forest, the kind of rich soil that chivalric romance has grown in for centuries. James Fenimore Cooper first saw the possibilities of moving the knights errant of medieval Europe to New England's woods, and now Castle Freeman Jr. performs an equally radical transplant with Go With Me, his oddly witty tale of a damsel in distress." Ron Charles

Remember Daryl, Daryl and their brother, Daryl of the old television series with Bob Newhart? Quadruple their force and you have the setting for a small group of townsmen who gather every day at the old chair mill. They discuss, they foretell and they are the old Greek wise men. Throughout this novel, they speak and reminisce and give each other advice. Whizzer is the leader of the group. He was a logger until one of the trees got him, and now as a paraplegic, his job is to keep this group together, with and without beer, on a daily basis.

Lillian, a young woman with long brown hair to her ass, as we are constantly reminded, comes to this group one day. She has been harassed by Blackway, the area's mafia bad guy. He sent her boyfriend scurrying out of town, broke her car window and then killed her beloved cat. She went to the local Sheriff Wingate who told her he there wasn't anything he could do to help her. He advised she leave town, she said no. A 'pistol' he thought, she was. He sent her on to Whizzer for help.

Whizzer looked for volunteers and Nate the Great, "a tall, long-boned, heavy-wristed kid: not a scholar, not a talker. Smarter than a horse, not smarter than a tractor." The other is Lester, an old man with a heavy limp. "Was he seventy?" Lillian wonders. "Was he eighty?" These three started out to find Blackway and to do what, exactly?

A small suspenseful novel, filled with humor, a smile on almost every page, but yet, a novel that has grace and charm and so well written. A profound novel filled with the wit of the Vermont old timer. No flatlanders allowed here.

Highly, Highly Recommended. prisrob 07-06-08

Go With Me: A Novel

Judgment Hill: A Novel (Hardscrabble Books)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect book to spend a few hours..., April 19, 2008

By 

Ryan Schad (Carmel, IN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Go With Me: A Novel (Hardcover)

Go With Me is a little like a modern western, lean and angular. This slight novel features great characters and a fast-moving plot intertwined with wandering musings of the local townsfolk, through which you learn the history of the town and the characters. I won't repeat the story line here, just advise you to get this book and lose yourself for a few hours. P.S. Robert Duvall, who played Gus McCrae in "Lonesome Dove" would make a great Lester in this movie version of this story.