14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Earthy and darkly funny, February 21, 2000
Merle Drown's powerful rural voice is both authentically simple and poetically lyrical. When we meet protagonist Jim Hutchins he is 50, lugging a shotgun from his trailer, preparing to kill his brother-in-law Emory, his "sworn enemy," (a phrase we later learn is wryly borrowed from his tormented eldest son) and ruminating how things got to this pass.
"Life makes you eat the thorns. Smell the roses if you can, but don't forget, you're going to eat the thorns. Course I ain't so smart. If I were smart, I'd have hunted up a pistol, then my elbow wouldn't hurt so."
Born and bred in Penacook County, NH, Hutchins quit school in the eighth grade, married his sweetheart, Pauline, and had four children. Three of them seem to be making worse messes of their lives than their parents and the fourth, the youngest, their shining hope, Elizabeth, died two years before at age 11 in an inexplicable drowning accident which has fragmented the family.
Bereft of hope, communication among them breaks down and each falls prey to his or her core weakness. Slow, steady Gregory, the oldest, becomes consumed by the voices in his head and the oddly prescient voices coming over his radio. Lisa escapes her abusive marriage after three children only to succumb to drugs and alcohol and prostitution. Tommy, the smartest, seems bent on drinking himself to destruction. Pauline clings mightily to each of her children, blaming others for their troubles.
Jim's grief is internal and inarticulate. Helplessly he watches Pauline turn to Emory for comfort and for money when she's spent all that they have and owe to buy her children out of the holes they've dug themselves. Dunned for back taxes by the IRS and the town, he seems unable to act, except to keep things from falling completely apart. It's Jim who fetches Lisa from her feckless, mean husband ("He claims Fesmire for a name, though I ain't uncertain that a while back in his family a turnip got over the fence"), Jim who keeps Tommy from dropping his hard-mouthed girlfriend out a second-story window, and Jim who takes the gun away from Gregory. But he is limited to reactions and when it comes to Pauline he's helpless.
While Jim's is the main voice, Drown allows each of the Hutchinses to speak. Characters who might otherwise seem people only a parent could love come into their own with humor and passion. Tommy hides his regrets under a breathless, edgy sass and more hell-bent energy than is healthy. Gregory works things out with a meticulous if loony and increasingly frightening earnestness. Lisa, the least comprehensible and least sympathetic, combines self-loathing with bitterness and bursts of rough independence and Pauline's grief and yearning for beauty infuse her every deed.
Violence lurks at the edges. Suplots include a panty thief and Emory's real estate maneuvering, impotence and police suspicions of having murdered his wife (Jim's sister).
Told in the present tense, the story unfurls the convoluted past while hurtling headlong into a ragged future. Despite their bleak, strapped lives, each character's voice is alive with wry humor and yearning. Drown's earthy, graceful, hilarious prose explores love and marriage, friendship, the power of money and poverty, middle-aged regret and other baggage of life. As funny as it is poignant, with an explosive climax that supplies symmetry, hope and a last laugh too, "The Suburbs of Heaven," is as fine a piece of literature as it is a provocative story.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"Charm" is not a word I'd ever apply to this book., November 18, 2000
By A Customer
To call the circumstances described in this book as "charming," as several reviewers have done, is patronizing. These characters all have major problems of their own making, they blame everyone and everything but themselves, and they all seem to think that sex or guns will solve whatever problem arises. A woman who buys "catting around" clothes for her adult, married son, then dances nude for her brother-in-law to get back some of the money (needed so that the trailer will not be repossessed for back taxes) is not charming, she's foolish. Another "adult" woman has three children in three years, endures physical abuse, and then turns to prostitution and drugs to support her alcohol habit, is sick and needs help, not a dose of charm. A man who hears snakes in his head and then buys a gun to use against his "sworn enemies" is terrifying, not charming or an example of "black humor," another term used here. This book is like a printed transcript of the Jerry Springer Show.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is New Hampshire?, August 29, 2000
Speak of a dysfunctional family. Wow! Meet Jim and Pauline Hutchins and their children, nephews and assorted other relatives. They find trouble where was none before. And when you think nothing else could possibly go wrong, another can of worms open up. The Book of Job is a children's tale by comparison. All this gets to the point where, unfortunately, it becomes very funny. It sounds like a story out of some Kentucky holler and not like prim, staid and silent New England.
I very much admire the author for his incredible gift of imagination. He wrote a wonderful book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
