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Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered

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When I was six years old, my family moved from Maine's heavily Protestant coast to one of its just as heavily Roman Catholic mill towns. What strikes me most powerfully about Carolyn Howard-Johnson's "collection of gentle sequels to THIS IS THE PLACE" (her novel of life in 1950s Utah) is how curiously familiar it feels to me - a woman whose entire experience with Utah consists of sitting on the runway for an hour in Salt Lake City, waiting for a transcontinental flight to continue, many years ago. For HARKENING's tales have two common themes running through them, and binding them together: "the child as outsider," and "the family as it really exists vs. the family as it imagines itself to be."

In "Child's Play," a little girl relaxes, chatters freely, forgets to be guarded with her playmate - and soon gives inadvertent offense. And so the author writes: "His face changed and I knew I had blundered." That feeling visits the child over and over, throughout the collection's stories told from her viewpoint. Her religious beliefs differ from those of the highly cohesive majority surrounding her, and she must always remember that she is an outsider. Whenever she forgets, she blunders; and then she must pay her nonconformity's price. Over and over.

"House of Neglect" made me smile in recognition, because although her name was not Nina - I nevertheless had an "Aunt Nina" of my very own. And an "Uncle Theodore," who loved her through half a century and more of unconventional matrimony; buried her with that love still evident; and passed away not long afterward, leaving a house filled with relics for the childless couple's nieces and nephews to distribute among them. Relics, and the memories that go with them.

Memories which, in "Legacy," are "filtered through glasses of one color or another" until neither the author nor her mother (the story's source) can be sure of their accuracy. Which does not rob those memories of their importance, or of their own kind of truth. Family stories take on their own lives, with time and repetition; and this particular truth Howard-Johnson understands very well.

I'll be loaning this book to my own mother next, because she is sure to recognize the situation described in its prologue. An adult daughter at the wheel of a car that she's driving through a city she knew well many years earlier. Her aging mother in the "navigator's seat"; and in the back seat, her aging aunt. Giving conflicting directions!

Although firmly grounded in Howard-Johnson's Utah, I'm sure HARKENING will strike familiar and resonant chords for other readers just as it did for me. Highly recommended!

Every family has stories to tell. We hear them most from those older and wiser than us. Stories of the past, of their lives and the lives of loved ones before them. Often we hear these stories so many times we fail to pay attention after a while. We roll our eyes thinking, not this again or how many times have I heard this story but we must stop and wonder have we ever really listened to the truth inside the story?

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's second novel, "Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered," will make you ask yourself that very question. "Harkening" is not your average book of short stories. Designed to be read at leisure, each story with the ability to stand on its own, it has been carefully arranged to take you through a time line of life. Mrs. Johnson shares with us from her own memory stories told to her by members of her family about her family spanning over many generations.

In a distinct writing style that only Carolyn Howard-Johnson possesses, the characters of "Harkening" are skillfully described in such a way that you can almost hear them telling the story in their own voice rather than reading it second hand. Each story is a beautifully crafted piece of "creative nonfiction," as termed by Mrs. Johnson, leaving you with an overwhelming sense of truth and the realization that maybe you should pay closer attention to those stories you've heard so many times in the past by your own family.

Review

By

Judith Woolcock Colombo

We stroll through a garden, we take a museum tour, or we look through a friend's family album. These are all quick glances at the bits and pieces that make up the whole. However, "Harkening: A Collection Of Stories Remembered" by Carolyn Howard-Johnson is more than a mere glimpse of the whole. Each story is like the petal of a rose, perfect and unique, an entity unto itself. When merged together each petal becomes more than itself. It becomes the rose superb and perfect.

"Harkening" presents us with the rose petal by petal. They are memories emerging from a woman's mind, recollections of her childhood or of stories handed down to her with love. The unique perspective of the person telling it colors each story. "Most stories came filtered through one glass or another."

There are stories that shock us. In "Legacy" an aging woman recalls discovering as a small child that her youngest aunt had syphilis, a legacy from one of her many lovers. She also discovers that her mother had an illegitimate child who disappeared. Stories such as "Mama's Depression" move us with the triumph of the human spirit over poverty. In "Child's Play", "Neighbors", "What isn't Lavender", and "Remembering Winter", religious intolerance mars a child's life. We are left stunned at the stupidity of an intolerant society and awed by the resilience of children to surmount hate and prejudice and to survive intact.

In "Harkening", we relive childhood's hurts and disappointments and revel in its triumphs, like learning to milk a cow. We wince in recognition of the mother, daughter conflict, but nevertheless, it intrigues us, and we wonder where the next story will lead.

Throughout the pages of "Harkening", another story emerges. It is the story of Utah, the land of towering mountains, glorious lakes, gray desert plains, and shimmering white salt flats. It is the story of a land whose soil, according to the author, "Harbored the pulse and throb of her heritage." This land nourishes, comforts, and punishes. It is part of its children's lives. Utah is in Howard-Johnson's blood. She cannot escape her great mother whom she both praises and damns, this nurturer and devastator. Without Utah the stories would lack the beauty and majesty that they now possess.

"Harkening" is a must read for anyone who loves the written word or wonderful stories told well. If you have read Howard-Johnson's first novel "This Is The Place" and loved it, you will also love Harkening because these are the experiences from which the novel sprang. If you have never read "This Is The Place", do so.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's inspiring new book of short stories, HARKENING, reminds us all to harken back to our beginnings, our very core. The stories of a childhood, nurtured and devastated in Utah, are like marzipan, leaving a sweet taste of family in one's mouth. The author herself readily admits in her prologue that "there are certain exigencies required to mold a tale into something...a reader would want to read." But isn't all memory colored by place and time? Just like Ms. Johnson's previous novel, THIS IS THE PLACE, the characters are finely drawn. Gram Lucretia, Mom-Bertie and Aunt Nina are women of a different time, a different etiquette, but their pluck and verve paves the way for generations of women to come. This is a book that will magically transport the reader not only back to Ms. Johnson's memories, but to their own as well.

A Different Generation is just one of the stories Carolyn Howard-Johnson included in her book HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED. After a girl is married, Mom will continue to be mom and act accordingly even though she is at her daughter's home. Sometimes humorous, sometimes out-of-line, but she is still mom. This story brought back many memories of my own mother.

Reviewed by Kristie Leigh Maguire, MyShelf.com

'Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered' takes us into the heart and lives of a family whose roots extend deep into the red soil of Utah - told only as the author, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, can tell it. Howard-Johnson is a one of a kind writer and her novels will be remembered long after we are gone. She has a way of turning what would normally be just an ordinary story into a polished gem that we will cherish and take out of our treasure chest to examine again and again.

'Harkening' is made up of seventeen stories, each of them excellent and unique. I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite among them. If forced to choose, I would have to go with two of them: Child's Play and Remembering Winter.

Child's Play gives us a look at the prejudice in this world against anyone who is different from others in their surroundings - told through the eyes of an innocent child. The hurt and confusion of this innocent child radiates from the pages.

Remembering Winter is another look at this same innocent child who just does not fit into the world in which she finds herself. As Howard-Johnson tells it, `There was a child in the central portion of my brain who was new in school. New in town. She had come from a different place, a different background, and a different religion. She did not fit into the frame but there she was.'

Be sure to add 'Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered' to your list of favorite books - right up there beside Howard-Johnson's first novel, This Is The Place. I know that I will.

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Reviewed by Kristie Leigh Maguire, author of 'Emails from the Edge (The Life of an Expatriate Wife)' and co-author along with Mark Haeuser of 'No Lady and Her Tramp'. Contributor to anthologies 'Calliope's Mousepad: Women Writers Online'; 'Musings: Authors Do It Write!' and 'NUW Roads Travelled'. Contributor to cookbooks 'Now We're Cooking! 43 Authors in the Kitchen' and 'Cooking By The Book'.

(As published in Midwest Book Review)

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's latest wonder arrived in my mailbox just when I was already trying to squeeze 30-hour days into my paltry 24. But how could I let something from such a gifted writer just sit there? Carolyn Howard-Johnson writes like an onion with each layer she peels craftily coaxing tears from her readers' eyes.

Harkening is one such tear-jerker -- a collection of Depression era tales from her mother's childhood and memories of her own. Some sad, some happy, all heartwarming.

There is something eerie about this book, something that keeps the reader off balance. It is clearly an autobiography, both of Howard-Johnson and of her mother. It says as much up front: "Stories can easily lose themselves without a teller-of-stories to keep them alive. A family needs a bard."

But sometimes I get the feeling that this book may be as much fiction as reality -- like the feeling some people get that they are outside themselves watching their comings and goings from afar. Two quotations she places up front lend credence to my theory.

And some of her tales are clearly not autobiographical or are they? Well, the names seem to change and she writes some in the third person, but maybe they are autobiographical just the same. I so dearly wanted to ask the author. But I held back so as to take the stories at face value, just as you, dear reader, will when you get the chance.

Harkening -- or at least some of the tales in Harkening -- picks up where This Is The Place left off. (If you have not yet read This Is The Place, I highly recommend it.) There are moments of triumph. There are scenes of tension. Many of the stories are seen through the eyes of a child, through the innocence of youth, and through superb, descriptive writing that makes the reader feel like he is there in the story.
Howard-Johnson finally reveals the source of her magical writing skills when she calls her mother "The most avid of these story-tellers."

If I could describe Harkening in one word, it would be "captivating!" Enjoy every story...

Carolyn Howard-Johnson is quite simply one of the finest writers that I've had the privilege to get to know online. Her writing flows with the rich descriptions and attention to detail that transport the reader to Salt Lake City of bygone days.

Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered describes the challenges, sorrows and secrets of three generations of women, strongly influenced by the hardships of the Great Depression. The stories are sometimes heart wrenching, sometimes funny, but always filled with Howard-Johnson's wonderful style. Consider this passage from Milk Glass, describing family turmoil at Christmas.

"The milk glass was in pieces on the floor reflecting red and blue light from our tree. Milky thumbprint indentations molded the luminous holiday colors into their own oval shapes. There was a piece of tinsel icicle dripping over the bowl's pedestal, shattered edges separated from the bowl itself. Ribbons of hard tack were scattered across the living room carpet. Some were crushed into the woolen pile. The coffee table was on its side, two of its carved legs kicking in the air at unfamiliar angles."

All families have their stories and secrets and when told with the honesty of Harkening, the reader feels as though she has known the family always.

Harkening weaves the delicate stands of the lives of three generations into a touching tapestry.

Sarah Mankowski
WordThunder.com (editor)

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's second novel "Harkening - A collection of Stories Remembered" is a poetic adventure. Johnson's skill with words, her poetic phraseology turns each narrative into a mini adventure that reads with the rhythm and tempo of a story poem. As with her first novel, "This is The Place" many of the short stories deal with bigotry and the cruelty words can inflict. Still the thread weaving all the memories into a whole is the power of love. Many of Johnson's narratives brought to mind memories of my growing up. "Harkening" is a marvelous, poetic, must-read novel.
Beverly J Scott author of "Righteous Revenge" &...

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's, "Harkening," is as evocative as music. She uses words like an invocation, calling the past into the present so vividly that the memory is more alive and true in its re-visioning than it ever was in the living.

In her story, "Summerville," for example, she describes and recaptures each moment with an innocence that ony a nine year old could know, but with the poetry and wisdom that no nine year old could ever articulate.

In, "Grandma's Slip," one of my favorites, she captures the reader in a moment so transparent and exquisite it's painful, as only love can be. The moment when a great-grandmother, a grandmother, and a grandson, for one instant, can see through their generational differences and touch that "soft" something that connects them, that connects us all. ""Beautiful," she said, her voice soft like the tissue that had whispered like water." And all three of them are lifted, in that moment, into that beauty, and the reader is lifted along with them.

The whole book is about what bridges those gaps that separate us from each other and our world. Those gaps of age, gender, religion, time and place. Carolyn Howard-Johnson weaves them all together with her words, as perfectly as Mom Bertie sews together her quilts. "Harkening" is an act of redemption, bringing the past into the present and making it whole.

Mary Ann Mitchell is the author of "The Adventures of Big Shot and Teeny Weeny."