BRATTLEBORO — Vermont author Howard Frank Mosher was fielding questions at a recent conference when a young man began to say to him, “As an aspiring writer...”
Mosher interrupted, asking, “What do you mean 'aspiring writer?' I am an aspiring writer too. I am trying to prove myself from one book to the next, and I never feel certain.”
This 73-year old aspiring writer hopes to be inspiring when he appears in Brattleboro to launch the publication of God's Kingdom. On Thursday, Oct. 8, at 6 p.m. at The Space at 118 Elliot (opposite the fire station), Everyone's Books presents Mosher who will read from his new novel and to give a talk, “Where Does Fiction Comes From.”
“In the talk, I will read scenes from some of my books and explore the real life people who inspired the characters,” explains Mosher.
One of America's most acclaimed writers, Mosher is the author of 11 novels and two memoirs. He is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, the American Civil Liberties Award for Excellence in the Arts, and the New England Independent Booksellers Association's Lifetime Achievement in the Arts award.
His fiction, set in the world of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, chronicles the intertwining family histories of the natives, wanderers, outcasts, and fugitives - white, Native American, escaped slaves fleeing north, French Canadians, and others - who settled in this remote and beautiful place.
Mosher's latest novel, God's Kingdom, has been praised by Stephen King who says that “this is American fiction at its very best,” and by Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo who said that “this lovely, moving book” is impossible to read “without thinking of Mark Twain on every page.”
Set in the 1950s, God's Kingdom is a sequel to Mosher's very popular novel, A Stranger in the Kingdom. He again follows the adventures of Jim Kinneson who comes of age in the Kingdom and uncovers his family's deepest secret.
Mosher explores the Kinnesons' history in the Kingdom, which has ties to much of the Kingdom's lore, including the massacre of the county's original Abenaki natives, the Kingdom's bloody battle to secede from Vermont over the issue of slavery, and the establishment of the town academy by a respected reverend, who was later murdered.
Along the way, Jim witnesses present-day events that affect the people and future of the Kingdom as well.
Is God's Kingdom at all autobiographical?
“I suppose if you think about it, it is somewhat autobiographical,” says Mosher. “The Kinnesons are based quite closely on my own family. Like Jim in this book, I had a relative with murder in his heart. My great-great-grandfather built an explosive device which he intended to use to blow up his entire family, but luckily succeeded in only killing himself.”
Mosher grew up in a huge story-telling family. “We had not a penny, but everyone told great stories,” he says.
Even his latest novel can be traced back to those early years. Mosher explains, “I wrote a primitive early draft of part of God's Kingdom when I was 10 years old, added another main element to the story when I was 40; and, umpteen drafts later, finished it last year. People sometimes ask me how long does a novel take to write. I used to say some take a year or two; others six or seven years, or even more. I now just tell people it takes as long as it takes.”
“Over the years, Mosher's Vermont Kingdom has become one of America's most beloved literary places,” writes Russo.
But is it real or just imaginary?
“People often ask me where the exact location of the events in my books happen,” says Mosher. “Kingdom County is an amalgamation of many places. It is of course mostly the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, but some of it is actually Quebec and much of the wilderness is probably North Maine Woods. Things get mixed together. For instance, the village Kingdom Commons is based on where I live, Irasburg, Vt., while its courthouse is the one in Newport, Vt.”
With his creation of Kingdom County, Mosher has become something of an ambassador for Vermont but, if truth be told, he is not even a native of the state.
“I grew up in a little community in upstate New York in the snow-belt region near Lake Ontario, but it was very much like the Northeast Kingdom,” says Mosher. “You could pick it up and set it down there and hardly notice the difference.
“After college my wife Phillis and I first moved to Northern Vermont where we thought we would teach for a year. But I soon discovered a gold mine of stories here, many from the depression and prohibition, that no one had ever written about before.”
He realized he had to stay.
“No writer could ever get to all of them in a lifetime,” Mosher said.
Mosher said he believes that Kingdom County is best defined by its stories. The Northeast Kingdom is such a distinctive region, he said, because it seems to have a character all its own.
“From the start, the sheer, rugged remoteness of the area has shut the region and the population off to itself,” he says. “It's a last fragment of a much older New England.
“The main characteristic of its residents, and of my characters, is an almost unparalleled independent-mindedness. Although most people here in the Kingdom will do almost anything for anyone, they cannot stand to be told what to do themselves. In that respect it may have more in common with certain isolated pockets of the southern Appalachians than with the rest of New England.
“Finally, the harsh beauty of the region's icy, north-flowing rivers, granite peaks, unbroken forests, and deep, glacial lakes makes the Northeast Kingdom a tough place to make a living but a wonderful place to live – and to write about. It could be argued that the Kingdom itself is the main character of God's Kingdom and each of my other books.”
Mosher proudly considers himself a regional writer, although the term he has always preferred is “place-based.”
“I write about this region almost exclusively,” he says, “and in the few books I wrote outside the area, such as The True Account: A Novel of the Lewis & Clark & Kinneson Expeditions, I intentionally have included Vermont characters in them.”
Mosher said he believes there is a prejudice about regional writing because so many second- and third-rate writers fall under that category.
“Too many regional writers go for the local joke, use stereotypical colorful characters and phonetic spelling to capture the dialect,” he says. “However, writing about a distinct part of the country is an honorable tradition in American literature. Many of our very best writers can be called regional writers, such as Mark Twain, Thoreau, Faulkner, and even early Hemingway, whose stories about his Michigan boyhood are regional writing at its very best.”
Of all writers, Faulkner is Mosher's biggest inspiration and influence, but he first fell under the spell of Hemingway.
“I began shamelessly imitating Hemingway, and my sentences were usually only a handful of words,” Mosher admits. “Then in college, I discovered Faulkner and found my true mentor. Now I began imitating Faulkner's style with sentences that ran a hundred or even two hundred words. After that I began mixing the two, with one short Hemingwayian sentence alternating with a long Faulknerian one. It took a while for me to develop my own style.”
Mosher's popularity has increased because motion pictures have been based on his book. Four of his novels - Northern Borders, Disappearances, Where the River Flows North, and A Stranger in the Kingdom - have been made into feature films by Vermont filmmaker Jay Craven.
“I have a good relationship with Jay,” said Mosher. “I've liked all the movies he has based on my books. I think he is especially good at casting. For instance, I really enjoyed Bruce Dern in Northern Borders and Kris Kristofferson in Disappearances.
“I am grateful to Jay in that my books have enjoyed a second life because of his films. In fact, some have sold better after Jay has made a movie of them.
“I think he is a good person to film my books because he has the courage and tenacity of many of people in them. He lives in Northeast Kingdom and has a feel for my characters. He knows both the people and the landscape of the Kingdom.”
Mosher and his wife Phillis may have lived all their adult lives in the Northeast Kingdom, but after the first few years there they left Vermont for a time. A very short time.
“I decided to go get an MFA in creative writing at the University of California in Irvine,” said Mosher. “It was the worst decision of my life. No sooner had I got there than I became disorientated. I was cut off from all the wonderful material in the Northeast Kingdom before I really understood it well enough to write about it. After a week in Southern California, I knew I had to go back.”
Mosher has no regrets about abandoning the MFA at Irvine.
“I think there is some technical things writing schools can teach more quickly than if you had to learn them on your own,” he says. “But all and all, it is pretty tough to teach writing. I had a teacher in high school who did not like my work. She told me that I should read the classics, revise, and write about what I know. I think that may have been the last good piece of advice I ever got about writing.”