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A review by rosseroo
Go with Me by Castle Freeman Jr.
5.0
This outstanding novella is a master class in fiction writing -- perfectly paced, perfectly plotted, filled with dark, sardonic humor, age-old themes, and unlikely heroes. Or to put it another way, it's a Coen Brothers movie turned into prose: combining the questing gumption of O Brother Where Art Thou with the dark modernization themes of No Country For Old Men, populated with the small-town heroes and thugs of Fargo. It's elegantly simple, the outcome is rather predictable, and yet it's impossible to stop turning the pages.
Set in the depressed backwoods of Vermont logging country over the course of a summer day, the story kicks off when the town sheriff discovers a haggard young woman asleep in her car outside his office. It seems a local thug named Blackway scared off her boyfriend, killed her cat, and is stalking her. Unfortunately, as the sheriff points out, there's not a whole lot he can do unless she has a witness to any of this -- which she doesn't. Unwilling to send her away emptyhanded, he suggests she go to the old sawmill, where a crippled old-timer sits court amidst a revolving cast of local men, playing cards, drinking beer, and generally passing the time. There, he suggests, she will find someone to go with her and talk to Blackway.
She does indeed find someone to go with her, but not the person the sheriff thinks. Instead, two locals -- a crafty old-timer and a dour young colossus -- agree to help her. The odd couple are entirely unlikely heroes, and as she travels with them to various motels and bars to track down Blackway, she grows increasingly uneasy about what she's gotten them into and their ability to emerge unscathed. Meanwhile, the story continually returns the reader to the sawmill, where the Greek chorus of local men discuss this and that, gradually filling in a newcomer on the lay of the land, and just what a sticky situation the young woman is in. The overall effect is of a slightly surreal, somewhat mythic confrontation, all deeply tinged in black humor and a rural noir sensibility reminiscent of Scott Wolvern's excellent short stories in Controlled Burn. Brilliant stuff worthy of multiple readings.
Set in the depressed backwoods of Vermont logging country over the course of a summer day, the story kicks off when the town sheriff discovers a haggard young woman asleep in her car outside his office. It seems a local thug named Blackway scared off her boyfriend, killed her cat, and is stalking her. Unfortunately, as the sheriff points out, there's not a whole lot he can do unless she has a witness to any of this -- which she doesn't. Unwilling to send her away emptyhanded, he suggests she go to the old sawmill, where a crippled old-timer sits court amidst a revolving cast of local men, playing cards, drinking beer, and generally passing the time. There, he suggests, she will find someone to go with her and talk to Blackway.
She does indeed find someone to go with her, but not the person the sheriff thinks. Instead, two locals -- a crafty old-timer and a dour young colossus -- agree to help her. The odd couple are entirely unlikely heroes, and as she travels with them to various motels and bars to track down Blackway, she grows increasingly uneasy about what she's gotten them into and their ability to emerge unscathed. Meanwhile, the story continually returns the reader to the sawmill, where the Greek chorus of local men discuss this and that, gradually filling in a newcomer on the lay of the land, and just what a sticky situation the young woman is in. The overall effect is of a slightly surreal, somewhat mythic confrontation, all deeply tinged in black humor and a rural noir sensibility reminiscent of Scott Wolvern's excellent short stories in Controlled Burn. Brilliant stuff worthy of multiple readings.