Country matters.
Hamer, Diane
The Round Barn
by Suzi Wizowaty
University Press of New England. 256 pages, $24.95
THE Round Barn is a post-feminist, post-gay novel set in the
Burlington, Vermont, area, specifically around a museum that's
clearly modeled on the Shelburn Falls Museum, even though its name is
never mentioned. I say the novel is post-feminist and post-gay because
in it a long-time lesbian develops feelings for a man, a lonely male
character lusts after his cousin, and a young gay man searches to lose
his virginity while developing a friendship with a woman who's a
very 21st century born-again Christian.
Told from multiple points of view, the story takes place over the
course of a spring and summer as the museum is making two decisions that
stir up the community: whether to move a famous local building, a round
barn, to the museum grounds; and whether to sell some of the
museum's fine art to pay for the maintenance of the rest of the
collection.
We get to know the characters well through their interior
monologues and conversations. There's Mary, who's fat and
happy with husband Jimmy but finds out she has ovarian cancer; her
cousin Tuesday, who has loved her since they were children together;
Didi, the lesbian who finds herself falling in love with a male reporter
while her lover of 25 years is out of town to attend an art seminar for
a few months; and David, Didi's eighteen-year-old nephew who wants
so desperately to be in love and finally have sex with someone other
than himself. The writing is spare, using interior thoughts to move the
action forward. Even the supernatural world makes an appearance and does
not seem out of place.
Mary loves to drive her red truck fast on the back roads and to
work in the grocery store with Jimmy, where she makes her sexy
sandwiches, good enough to warrant an article in the newspaper and to
become a tourist attraction. She makes the bread for the sandwiches in
the shapes of breasts, and the individual character of the creations
reflect the variations of breasts in real life. She had been a dowser,
but turned away from this sideline when the ovarian cancer was
discovered. She rails against not knowing that the cancer had been
growing silently within her all this time. The love that Mary and Jimmy
share is beautifully rendered in quiet moments and memories. As Mary
slows down with the onset of death, she learns to savor the quiet
moments in bed, holding Jimmy in the early mornings, and to cherish the
feeling of cloth on her skin. While most of the characters are
associated with the museum, Mary's journey is the one around which
the other action revolves.
So Didi makes choices regarding her attraction to the reporter.
David struggles to learn his place in the world and in the process
uncovers the mystery of the barn. Tuesday feels both lost and released
when Mary dies. An epilogue looks into the future for us, bringing both
a tear and a smile. Wizowaty's writing is all clean lines and
spaces, much like the rural folks she writes about. She shares with us
their love of the hills and the pastures, providing simple descriptions
and few words. The northeast corner of Vermont is a magical place and
The Round Barn conveys this quality in its spare prose.
