Connecticut and The Ice Storm by Rick Moody (1994)

The Ice Storm by Rick Moody is set in the real town of New Canaan in Fairfield County, Connecticut. A popular home for wealthy commuting New Yorkers since the advent of the railroad in 1868, its population more than doubled between 1950 and 1970 (from 8,001 to 17,451) as a result of its position at the centre of the modern architectural design movement from the late 1940s to the 1960s when a group of Havard students moved to the town and built around 80 to 100 modern homes. Other famous architects including Frank Lloyd Wright also built houses in the town. The Ice Storm is set following that population boom in 1973 and focuses on two suburban middle-class families typical of the time and place, with lengthy descriptions of their New Canaan modern homes replete with cornerless plastic furniture, high fidelity sound systems and water-beds. Today the town is one of the most affluent communities in the United States (in 2008 New Canaan was ranked first in the nation with the highest median family income). The town has also served as a popular shooting location for New England-set films, with the adaptations of Revolutionary Road, Stepford Wives (2004) and The Ice Storm (which shows several of the modern homes of the period inside and out) all being at least partly shot in New Canaan.

The Spotts House (built 1972), one of the modern homes in New Canaan to feature in the film version of The Ice Storm.

The Ice Storm was adapted into a 1997 film by Ang Lee starring, amongst others, Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver. I haven't seen the film in a long while and whilst I remember admiring it I can definitely say I enjoyed the book more. For one there is a lot more dark humour in the novel, especially in the way the comically inappropriate thoughts of the characters contrast with the seriousness of the situations they are in (I especially enjoyed the son Paul Hood's comparing his family’s problems with those of The Fantastic Four). This is obviously something that would have been very hard to transfer to film, not being able to enter the thoughts of the characters (though some voice-over narration is used), and as a result Ang Lee clearly decided to play up the more sombre, melodramatic and tragic elements of the plot. Also many of the more risqué sexual scenes in the book were excised - the black humour with which they are treated on the page being more in line with the films of Todd Solondz, and evidently would not have fitted with the tone of Ang Lee’s adaptation (one plot strand in the book involves a parent who brings his teenage son to a wife-swapping "key party" to be sexually initiated, with what could have been a borderline tasteless outcome were it not so wickedly funny). In all I’d say The Ice Storm is the book I’ve taken the most pleasure from on this challenge so far, and I’d recommend it to anyone with a slightly twisted sense of humour.

Next: New York!

Week 6: State - Connecticut

Connecticut is the last state on the New England leg of this reading trip. Known as the Constitution State for being, somewhat debatably, the first state to have a written constitution (the Fundamental Orders of 1638-9), Connecticut is today known primarily for its wealth. The per capita income for 2007 was $54,117, ranking first among the states, though this does often overshadow the poorer regions of the state, mostly in the east (the state capital Hartford is one of the ten poorest cities in America). The western and southern area (part of the New York Tri-State area) is the most affluent and populous region of the state. Many music stars, radio and television personalities, and athletes have made temporary homes in the wealthy suburbs of Fairfield County. Connecticut is also home to the oldest public library in America (The Scoville Memorial Library founded 1771), New England's largest Protestant Church (The First Cathedral in Bloomfield), and Yale University, established in 1701, one of the most academically renowned and selective universities in the United States. The largest city is Bridgeport and Connecticut's center of population is in Cheshire, New Haven County.

Films set in Connecticut tend to focus on the wealthier side of life in the state: see the big country houses in Bringing Up Baby, Beetlejuice, Christmas in Connecticut, and Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House. While in the east side of the state the 1988 film Mystic Pizza was set in the real seaside village of Mystic in New London County.

Three popular books which focus on suburban life in Connecticut are Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates, The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin and The Ice Storm by Rick Moody. I almost wish I hadn't read The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin last year as it would have been the perfect choice for Connecticut. Not only is it very short (I read it in a day), but it's an enjoyable satire of wealthy American suburbs. Having narrowed down that choice though I've opted to go with The Ice Storm.

The Ice Storm was first published in 1994 to wide acclaim and was swiftly adapted into a 1997 film by Ang Lee. The book is set in the real town of New Canaan (currently the wealthiest town in Connecticut with a per capita income of $85,459) in 1973 against the backdrop of the Watergate scandal and the sexual revolution. Yes that's right, more adultery!

Review to follow this/next week...

Rhode Island and The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike (1984)

So far on this trip around New England we have had two appearances of the supernatural (most prominently in Carrie, and with the brief appearance of the real-life executed “witch” Ann Hibbins in The Scarlet Letter), two cases of adultery (Constance Mackenzie and Hester Prynne’s illegitimate daughters in Peyton Place and The Scarlet Letter respectively), and small-town gossiping has been rife (nowhere more so than in Peyton Place). Now with John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick we have all three – a novel about gossiping adulterous witches. It makes sense that we have reached this point – the themes of fear of the supernatural and suspicion of one’s own neighbours are embedded into the roots of New England. The first known person to have been executed as a witch in the region was Alice Young at Hartford, Connecticut in 1647, just 19 years after the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. A further 11 are recorded as having been executed from 1648 to 1688 (including Ann Hibbins) and from 1692 to 1693 the Salem Witch Trials led to the hanging of fourteen women and five men (more of the accused died from torture and in prison) famously dramatised in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. The episode is one of the darkest in America’s history and understandably the shadow it cast has long resonated in the literature of the region.

“Puritanism had landed smack on that rock and after regaining its strength at the expense of the soft-hearted Indians had thrown its steeples and stone walls all across Connecticut, leaving Rhode Island to the Quakers and Jews and antinomians and women.”

As with Peyton Place any work that features in its title the name of the town or city where the action occurs you would expect the said place to feature as prominently as any character, and in the Witches of Eastwick Updike includes some wonderfully biting passages describing both the fictional town and the state of Rhode Island, especially in the opening chapters. However, I'm disappointed to say the story did not bewitch me at all. Aside from a few key set-pieces (the tennis match, the hot-tub orgy, and a murder/suicide scene that is the main turning point) most of what happens over the course of the novel is related from one character to another after the fact during a series of extended gossip-sessions between the three witches, in a manner that I personally founded extremely tiresome. Even the Darryl Van Horne character appears mostly in the conversations of others, like a mysterious Gatsby-type figure. In the 1987 film Darryl Van Horne, played by Jack Nicholson, turns out to be the devil (cue some quite ridiculous and rather dated 1980s stop-motion). In the book there is barely even the implication, other than that his skin and, erm, bodily fluids are cold to the touch. He is devilish, Machiavellian even, but a man all the same. It is no wonder that fans of the book AND the film are so hard to pin down. I think it's safe to say I'm neither.

Next: Connecticut

Week 5: State - Rhode Island

Rhode Island, or to give it its full title “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” (the longest name of any state), is famously the smallest of all 50 states (but the second highest in population density). Founded in the 17th century by, amongst others, Roger Williams, a theologian who was forced out of the strongly Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony for advocating freedom of religion, separation of church and state, abolition of slavery, and equal treatment to Native Americans, the colony was established on the principles of religious and political tolerance. Over the last century Rhode Island has become one of the most reliable democrat states in the country, having only voted Republican in the Presidential Elections seven times in the last ninety-six years. Rhode Island is known as the Ocean State (in reference to its large bays and inlets) and the capital and largest city is Providence.

In popular culture Rhode Island is best known today as the setting of the animation series Family Guy (set in the fictional town of Quahog) and most of the films by the Farrelly Brothers (who are native to the state), from their debut Dumb and Dumber (which opens in Providence before moving to Aspen, Colorado), though Me, Myself & Irene, to their most recent Hall Pass. The 1956 musical High Society was set around a wedding in Newport, which was also where John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier married three years earlier. However, there have not been a great deal of notable novels set in the state, so picking one was not a difficult task:

John Updike is the first writer chosen on this section of the trip not have been born in the New England region. Updike was born in Pennsylvania but moved to Massachusetts in his late twenties, where he continued to live until his death in 2009 at the age of 76. Updike set numerous novels in the region, most famously Couples, set in the fictional town of Tarbox (which many asserted was based on the town of Ipswich, MA where he lived). Aside from its lesser regarded sequel (The Widows of Eastwick) The Witches of Eastwick was his only novel set in Rhode Island. The reviews on amazon seem to be greatly divided between fans of Updike (4 and 5 stars) and those who have come to the book as fans of the film (1 and 2 stars). I fall into neither category this being my first Updike. I remember seeing the film a long time ago and thinking it a mildly entertaining vehicle for Jack Nicholson’s eyebrows so if anything the prospect that I’m in for something very different is not such a bad thing.

Review to follow this/next week…

Massachusetts and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)

The Scarlet Letter tells the story of Hester Prynne, who is punished for conceiving through an adulterous affair, and is set during the years 1642 to 1649 in a Puritan village near Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, an English settlement established in 1628 which included much of present-day central New England. The Puritans were a group of English Protestants who felt that the Church of England post-Reformation was still too tolerant towards practises associated with the Catholic Church, around 21,000 of whom migrated to New England between 1630 and 1640 and supported the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Puritans dominated the governance of the colony and the laws of the land were strongly influenced by the religious leaders. The punishment for adultery in Puritan Boston was death by hanging, and Hawthorne makes a point of explaining in the opening chapters that the enforced wearing of a scarlet A for “adultery” (an invention of Hawthorne’s rather than a real punishment) would have been seen as a lenient sentence for the time. While The Scarlet Letter is a work of fiction, it features several real historical figures as characters, including Ann Hibbins, who was executed for witchcraft in 1656, and Richard Bellingham, who was the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony when the story opens in 1642 and with whom Hester pleads with not have her daughter taken away from her.

The Scarlet Letter has been adapted for the screen on numerous occasions, so it was a surprise on reading it for the first time that, unlike nearly every film version, the novel does not describe the adulterous affair itself in any detail. The story actually opens after Hester Prynne has been marked with the red letter “A” and follows her and the unnamed father of her child, who is revealed to the reader as the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, living with their guilt and remorse (openly and secretly respectively) over the following seven years. It’s a deeply philosophical and psychological novel that reminded me at points of Crime and Punishment in the manner in which it depicts a man whose inner turmoil with his guilt and the burden that it places on his soul manifests itself into a physical illness that threatens to take his life. Despite what I foolishly predicted The Scarlet Letter is a difficult read, and I would be hard-pushed to recommend it to anyone not interested in 19th century American literature. It’s easy to see why it is so revered as one of the great American novels, but it moves at a weighty pace and I don’t feel like I especially got much out of it by treating it as a quick read... So, moving swiftly on...

Next: Rhode Island

Week 4: State - Massachusetts

Massachusetts, 'The Bay State', is the most populous state in the New England region, two-thirds of whom reside in the metropolitan area of Boston, the fifth largest city in the United States (and one of the oldest). Massachusetts is one of the most historically and culturally significant states. It is home to the site of Plymouth Rock, traditionally seen as the landing point of the Mayflower pilgrims in 1620, Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the U.S. (founded in 1636), and was witness to both the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, both iconic events in the lead up to the American Revolutionary War. Massachusetts was also the name of the Bee Gees first hit single. Not quite so historic perhaps.

Many works of fiction have been set in Massachusetts, mostly in the city of Boston. Films include The Departed, Good Will Hunting, The Social Network (Harvard University), and The Town (Charlestown, Boston). The successful television series Cheers, Ally McBeal and Boston Legal are all set in Boston. The most notable contemporary author writing out of Boston is Dennis Lehane, whose novels Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone and Shutter Island, all set in and around the city, have been turned into critically acclaimed feature films in the last ten years. Classic works of fiction set in the state include Little Women by Louisa May Alcott set in the town of Concord during and after the Civil War, The Bostonians by Henry James set in late 19th century aristocratic Boston, and Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible which dramatised the infamous 1692 Salem Witch Trials.

Any of those would have been legitimate choices, not having read any of them myself (bar the Crucible, which is a play anyway), but instead, perhaps foolishly, I have opted to go for a much older book, one of the first mass produced works of literature to be published in the United States:

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1850 and set in Puritan Boston in the 1640s, has a reputation for being a difficult read, though I suspect this may be down to the young age at which American children are forced to read it in school and their unfamiliarity with the language. Having gone to school in England though, where every other book we are told to read is riddled with “thou hast thy” and characters who speaketh like thiseth, I’m hoping I won't have any real problems with it.

Review to follow next week...

Vermont and All That I Have by Castle Freeman (2009)

All That I Have is a novel by Castle Freeman set in rural southern Vermont around the Green Mountain National Forest region of the state. Referred to as the 'granite backbone' of the state, the forest was established in 1932, as a result of uncontrolled over-logging, fire and flooding. The protagonist is Lucian Wing, a local county sheriff whose career path has been tied to his home state. Having chosen the Navy out of school over college but not having much care for ships (Vermont is New England’s only landlocked state) he wound up in port patrol dealing with drunks. That experience helped him get into the state police back in Vermont after a brief stint working in the forest for his uncle's logging business. After a year and a half of that he quit to become the local sheriff’s deputy, eventually taking over, unopposed in election, from the retiring sheriff himself. In the U.S. the role of the sheriff varies from state to state. In Vermont the elected sheriff is primarily an officer of the County Court, but in the absence of a local police force in rural towns law enforcement patrol is performed as well. As Lucian himself explains due to the costs of the sheriff’s department being paid for by the taxpayers this can lead to more bookkeeping work than actual policing when the town boards and treasurers want to "bite every dime you spend". All That I Have is about dealing with that unexciting side of sheriffing, which as Lucian describes it "is like being the bouncer at the Ladies' Aid Lunch: when things are going normally, they don't work you too hard".

I’d definitely recommend All That I Have to anyone looking for a fast-paced easy read. I don’t quite get the Cormac McCarthy comparisons, other than that they both have an economical style of prose. Freeman’s writing has a lighter semi-comic tone, halfway between the small-town quirkiness of the Coen Brothers' Fargo and the dry wisecracking of Philip Marlowe. The plot itself is pure detective-noir, albeit relocated to a rural setting – an item belonging to some rich mysterious foreigners goes missing and the chief culprit can’t be located. It’s entertaining stuff, and Freeman has a natural gift for dialogue and a Chandler-esque way with a simile.

Next: Massachusetts