Mohawk by Richard Russo Richard Russo is one of America’s funniest literary novelists. Richard Russo lives in coastal Maine with his wife and their two daughters. He has written five novles: Mohawk, The Risk Pool, Nobodys Fool, Straight Man and Empire Falls, and a collection of short stories, The Whore’s Child. Mohawk remains today as it was described then: A first novel with all the assurance of a mature writer at the peak of form and ambition, Mohawk is set in upstate New York and chronicles over a dozen lives in a leather town, long after the tanneries have started closing down. Ranging over three generationsand clustered mainly in two clans, the Grouses and the Gaffneysthese remarkably various lives share only the common human dilemmas and the awesome physical and emotional presence of Mohawk itself. For this is a town like Winesburg, Ohio or Our Town, in our time, that encompasses a plethora of characters, events and mysteries.
At once honestly tragic and sharply, genuinely funny, Mohawk captures life, then affirms it. This novel is based in small-town New England, and all readers who have ever lived in a small town anywhere in America will feel like they’re in on one of the wittiest jokes they’ve ever heard the entire time they read this book. Some characters want out of the town but seem never to succeed. Others never think of leaving. Others have thought of it and want to stay. All of which creates a very real and very humorous tale of small town life. This story isn’t small-minded in its small-town setting, nor is it simply humorous. Large personal issues that everyone, despite where he/she lives, must deal with are honestly and intelligently explored in this novel (e.g.
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a father’s death, cancer, divorce, growing up, growing old, being poor, being rich then becoming poor).
This book is similar in that they are tales about small towns that depended on a factory to keep their economic viability and the industry has dried up. In Mohawk, the parents are so dull (Anne Grouse and Dallas Younger) that we couldn’t care what happens to them and their teenaged son (Randall) seems to do a lot of things on a whim (just drop out of college and hitch-hike back to town) that we really do not know what makes him tick. Anne has done a few things that defy logic like having an affair with Dallas’ best friend (Dan) and still marrying Dallas, though she doesn’t love him. Russo fails to reasonably explain Anne’s attraction to Dan and the reason for her wanting to marry Dallas. Dallas is so drab as an ex-star high school football player who constantly forgets what he had planned to do.
One of the few characters with any substance is Mather Grouse, Anne’s father who lived a very rigid life. Mather always wanted that Anne leave Mohawk to find her fortune and she is on the verge of doing so, when he suddenly dies. Anne is forced to give up her plans in order to stay with her mother. Anne’s mother is pretty annoying and is herself annoyed by just about everything especially any type of insect. “Mohawk” is an extremely easy read…easy not meaning insipid; easy as in leisurely, believable, warm, familiar. Richard Russo takes readers for a realistic, at times humorous, meander through small town life. This is accomplished with well fleshed-out characters, most of whom have never left Mohawk, New York, and the happenings at institutions and establishments revered for their individual unique contribution to small-town life (the only school; the one hospital, known for its inaccessibility, yet missed when replaced; the favorite grill where sorry old men gamble as much as they eat; the leather mills and tanneries, blamed for high cancer rates, where men worked hard for a living, some corrupted by a greedy management).
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An absence of big-budget thrills arrived at with contrived, far-fetched situations feeds the real-town feel and is balanced by an interest sparked by the actors’ very human emotions.
“Mohawk” is a captivating narrative of missed opportunities, abandoned dreams, and lives lived only for the pleasure of each moment. It is a story whose characters are full of longing, loss, fear, insecurity, and love…emotions experienced by all who breathe, even those who never leave the comfort of a small town they have always called home. Russo’s storytelling abilities were not yet as strong, his characterizations weak. In fact, all of the people who populate the town of Mohawk seem to be more archtypes than fully realized individuals. The book is divided in two parts, with a jump in five years, leading to abrupt shifts in focus, inconsistency in character development and some hasty and murky plotting. The second half was just not as interesting to me as the first, and almost seemed like a different book.
Russo’s rapier-sharp wit is in short supply, as well, which is one of his strongest assets as a writer. As with Russo’s other stories, the characters are more important than the plot, and he is able to make them compelling enough that we want to keep reading. Compared with his other novels, this one is rather serious, although there is some humor. This novel is good but ; in a way, this book is like an exhibition game before the regular season; we get a general feel for what Russo does but it is still just warming up. For example, in Dallas, we see the prototype for the deeper Sully in Nobody’s Fool. Other elements of this story are revisited in his other stories. Richard Russo is simply one of the finest American authors writing today.
What is most remarkable about Russo is his ability to use the same characters over and over again in his books, yet still manage to make the story seem fresh and new every time. In Mohawk Richard Russo explores these lives with profound compassion and flint-hard wit. Out of derailed ambitions and old loves, secret hatreds and communal myths, he has created a richly plotted, densely populated, and wonderfully written novel that captures every nuance of America’s backyard. If you are interested in starting to read Russo, this is as good a place to start as any, all his skills are on display. However, for Russo at his absolute finest, don’t stop here, but move on to “Nobody’s Fool” and “Empire Falls.”
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Bibliography:
Review written by Michael A. Newman (New Hyde Park, NY); Review written by H. Huggins (Nashville, TN); Review Written by BJ Fraser (Michigan); Review written by Okla Elliott (Greensboro, NC United States)..
