Reap [Hardcover]

Eric Rickstad (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2000

A bold debut novel weaves a coming-of-age story into the gritty lives and desolate beauty of Vermont's northeast kingdom

Like a cross between Denis Johnson's Already Dead and David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Reap draws us into the hot, still air of a summer backwoods at whose fringes lurk danger and epiphany. Jessup Burke, a lonely, naive sixteen-year old, has grown up without a father in a jobless, indifferent logging town. Out of high school a year early, he now bikes through the woods with his fishing gear, daydreaming of his sweetheart and their secret "home" in an abandoned farmhouse. When Reg, an embittered, paranoid recluse fresh out of jail for growing marijuana, encounters Jessup hitchhiking, he is at first drawn to the boy's easily manipulated naivet, but the two soon become irreversibly bound. As Jessup unknowingly participates in Reg's perilous, criminal behavior, he also endangers himself when his relationship with Marigold, Reg's younger, married sister, goes beyond friendship.

Jessup's rude awakening into adulthood is rendered in sure and supple prose in this dramatic, action-packed novel.

"Rickstad has created a hard-edged, quick-moving, violent story of maimed and desperate characters, tempered by a fine, lyric sensibility and an awareness of place that sings with evocation and authenticity."--George Garrett

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

By turns bucolic and eerie, this engaging backwoods bildungsroman set in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom probes the mysteries of growing, as plants, people and situations twist inexorably in unpredictable, dangerous directions. Fanciful 16-year-old loner Jessup Burke dreams of earning the money to fix his broken-down car so he can drive to visit his true love, Emily, who's just moved to Massachusetts with her family. Twenty-nine-year-old ex-con Reg Cumber talks of racing on the NASCAR circuit, and through a bountiful marijuana crop, only part of which belongs to him, he thinks he may have a way to get closer to his dream--and settle some old scores in the bargain. Reg's younger sister, Marigold, is stuck in a dysfunctional marriage; her logger husband had an emasculating chainsaw accident and is suffering from psychic wounds more devastating than his physical injuries. Unseasoned Jessup soon finds himself willingly entangled in the Cumbers' world. In return for money and a promise to fix his car, Jessup goes to work for Reg, helping him bring in the harvest, and Reg teaches him to drive a stick-shift, drink beer, smoke pot and cigarettes. Both of them grew up fatherless, and this commonality bonds the two new friends even closer. Through Reg, Jessup discovers that what he has been told of his own father's death is a shameful lie. Marigold is immediately drawn to Jessup, and she becomes the source of an even greater discovery for him. But her husband is growing dangerous, and so is Reg's scheming. In this promising first novel, Rickstad mirrors the secrets and convolutions of his characters' lives in the snarled landscape and lush, clandestine pot farms. The likable Jessup holds the reader's sympathy and concern throughout the progressively more harrowing, absorbing tale. Author tour. (Feb.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Set in Northeast Vermont, this is the story of Jessup Burke, a lonely, fatherless 16-year-old, and Reg Cumber, a 29-year-old ex-con. The two meet when a drunken Reg almost runs over Jessup on a back country road where Jessup is hitchhiking. When Jessup agrees to work for Reg to earn money to fix up his Vega so he can visit his girlfriend Emily, he doesn't realize that he is helping Reg with his marijuana business. While Reg is not the most likable man, he and Jessup both lost their fathers early in life, and they become friends. Reg knows exactly what happened to his father, but Jessup can only guess--an enigma that causes him to reel out of control, and he is sucked into Reg's misanthropic world. Add to that Jessup's infatuation with an older woman, Reg's sister, Marigold. Rickstad's first novel is a violent, action-packed tale that uses a different approach than the traditional coming-of-age story. It has some uneven plotting, and the lack of character development makes it difficult for the reader to care what happens to them. Purchase only for larger fiction collections.
-Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; First Edition edition (February 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670885177
• ISBN-13: 978-0670885176
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,040,241 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

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, February 29, 2000

By 

cali (SanDiego) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reap (Hardcover)

Finally! A writer in his/her 30s who can write a novel, a real novel, in 3rd person... I was beginning to think that the only thing a Gen X (Gen Y?) writer could muster for material was old televison scripts and first person angst ridden self referential pablum about how mean their yuppie parents were to them by buying them a used car for high school graduation instead of a new one, or how cruel their hunter boyfriends are, all while product name dropping more than Ann Beattie in the mid eighties.... For a real read, with in your face edgy dialogue great outdoor and inner landscapes, and characters with actual LIVES, though sometimes violent and grim ones, this book does it. The author is a smart enough to get out of the way of his novel, for the betterment of it. Refreshing. Read it.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not the picture postcard version of Vermont., May 18, 2000

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Reap (Hardcover)

I was going to stick with 4 stars but I believe it was my own "Vermont" that generated that feeling. This is an exceptional young writer who I look forward to reading again.

"The boy ran a hand over a buzz cut that looked like a skim of mold covering his skull".

Great metaphor! Also indicative of the work. An accurate description, but an uncomfortable, queasy, description. Mr. Rickstad makes dozens of acute observations about people and their thoughts, often unpleasant, but very real, and very well written.

Another reader at Amazon suggested this book, I would thank the person by name but I didn't get permission, so I will just say thanks "AA".

There is not much of Vermont I have not been to, the State also happens to be my favorite place to spend time. Mr. Rickstad clearly knows his material, from geography, to speech patterns, to the dirt racetracks hidden amongst the Mountains of the Green Mountain State.

What was particularly well done was the County Fair. I have been to a few in that state, and the Author clearly has spent his time there as well. I did not find the humor that others said they read. I found the book to be as dark as the dirt logging roads along which much of the great dialogue between characters takes place. Or perhaps as dark as Reg or his home-painted black Camino.

There is an enormous story told in a relatively short 284 pages. The book is an extremely abrupt corruption/coming of age experience for one young man, and the stories and often-personal tragedy of a host of other people that are hard to like, but you feel for them as the book progresses.

There was a detail that I did not see in the other reviews that I thought was a brilliant bit of irony. Now I may have misread it, and I wouldn't want to ruin it for other readers. However if I understood the detail correctly it was brilliant.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trainspotting for Rural America!, April 20, 2000

By 

Caroline (Gainesville FLA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reap (Hardcover)

Despite the language being significantly different than that of Trainspotting, (Trainspotting being very phonetic) and the landscape being rural America, REAP still reminded me of the Brit book in its great depth of character and its knowledge of the seedy side of a drug culture (in REAP it's marijuana). It's a romp of a story, the characters are recognizable to anyone who grew up in smalltown USA, whether in the south or northe, or anywhere. At the same time, they are separate from us, their lives desperate and circumstances unforgiving. This book IS violent, and dark, and (I thought) frightening, but it is also compelling. It makes you look, despite not wanting to! It's a beautiful sad first novel.