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A review by karieh13
All That I Have by Castle Freeman
4.0
What stands out for me in Castle Freeman Jr.’s “All That I Have” is the wonderful main character, Sheriff Lucian Wing, and the humor that runs throughout the book.
Set in a small town part of Vermont (though at times I kept moving that town to the south in my mind, given the manner of speaking of several characters), this book is a slice of life piece. True, there is a story arc and a climax…but there’s an overlying day to day-ness of it that suggest that the events, while memorable, are all part of a way of life.
That way of life is embodied in Lucian Wing – who turns his profession into a verb. Everything he does is part of “sheriffing” – a job passed on to him by his mentor, the previous Sheriff Wingate.
More than a job, though, it’s learning and knowing people. Or “getting” people.
“Well, it’s changing times, ain’t it? The way I said before, we’ve got different kinds of people passing through here from what there used to be. Take the Russians. Take Morgan Endor. People you never do get. But you can get them partway. The Russians? I get them. They’re evildoers. Morgan Endor? Don’t know. I could take you all the way, Sheriff. I doubt it. I doubt it like hell. But I don’t know.”
Being in the first person, being in Lucian’s mind is wonderful, a treasure trove of brilliant things thought in the simplest of ways. (At times his voices dances right up to the line of too folksy for me, but never quite crosses.) Even though his world is small, he’s seen a great deal, thought about even more…yet isn’t jaded. Well – except for the part of his mind that is closed off from the reader. And from himself. You know it’s there, but it’s never spoken of.
Wing sees his small world with clear eyes and through a lens of humor.
“The door had been broken in. It had been destroyed: glass all over the porch, all over the room inside, busted woodwork….He’d more than shattered the glass and the woodwork. He’d ripped the door and the upper hinge right out of the frame.”
“Cat burglar, here, it looks like,” I said.”
Though he left his part of the world for the navy, it was a brief interlude before returning, and with the knowledge that people are the same the world over, and maybe with a few more skills with which to handle them.
“In the shore patrol, I found out that I have a talent for talking to people that are very, very drunk. And I learned that if talking don’t work, you can do about anything you like with a drunk by grabbing tight hold of his nose and twisting. You won’t do permanent damage, but he will come along, plus he’ll put out quite a lot of blood, which changes the subject, makes him think, and impresses any friends of his who might want to join in the fun.”
And there are the usual small town characters in Lucian’s world…but they don’t come off as stereotypical. There’s something there, some depth that keeps them as a character and not a caricature.
“Addison’s what you could call a pillar of the community, though he’s the kind of pillar where the side facing out gets a little more paint than the side facing in.”
This small book is a story about a place, a people and a man. A life that is like many others, where drama comes in, dusts things up a bit, and then leaves…and the dust settles down again. It seems a funny, yet thoughtful example of the saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Set in a small town part of Vermont (though at times I kept moving that town to the south in my mind, given the manner of speaking of several characters), this book is a slice of life piece. True, there is a story arc and a climax…but there’s an overlying day to day-ness of it that suggest that the events, while memorable, are all part of a way of life.
That way of life is embodied in Lucian Wing – who turns his profession into a verb. Everything he does is part of “sheriffing” – a job passed on to him by his mentor, the previous Sheriff Wingate.
More than a job, though, it’s learning and knowing people. Or “getting” people.
“Well, it’s changing times, ain’t it? The way I said before, we’ve got different kinds of people passing through here from what there used to be. Take the Russians. Take Morgan Endor. People you never do get. But you can get them partway. The Russians? I get them. They’re evildoers. Morgan Endor? Don’t know. I could take you all the way, Sheriff. I doubt it. I doubt it like hell. But I don’t know.”
Being in the first person, being in Lucian’s mind is wonderful, a treasure trove of brilliant things thought in the simplest of ways. (At times his voices dances right up to the line of too folksy for me, but never quite crosses.) Even though his world is small, he’s seen a great deal, thought about even more…yet isn’t jaded. Well – except for the part of his mind that is closed off from the reader. And from himself. You know it’s there, but it’s never spoken of.
Wing sees his small world with clear eyes and through a lens of humor.
“The door had been broken in. It had been destroyed: glass all over the porch, all over the room inside, busted woodwork….He’d more than shattered the glass and the woodwork. He’d ripped the door and the upper hinge right out of the frame.”
“Cat burglar, here, it looks like,” I said.”
Though he left his part of the world for the navy, it was a brief interlude before returning, and with the knowledge that people are the same the world over, and maybe with a few more skills with which to handle them.
“In the shore patrol, I found out that I have a talent for talking to people that are very, very drunk. And I learned that if talking don’t work, you can do about anything you like with a drunk by grabbing tight hold of his nose and twisting. You won’t do permanent damage, but he will come along, plus he’ll put out quite a lot of blood, which changes the subject, makes him think, and impresses any friends of his who might want to join in the fun.”
And there are the usual small town characters in Lucian’s world…but they don’t come off as stereotypical. There’s something there, some depth that keeps them as a character and not a caricature.
“Addison’s what you could call a pillar of the community, though he’s the kind of pillar where the side facing out gets a little more paint than the side facing in.”
This small book is a story about a place, a people and a man. A life that is like many others, where drama comes in, dusts things up a bit, and then leaves…and the dust settles down again. It seems a funny, yet thoughtful example of the saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”