The Best of the Backlist: Chris Bohjalian

Chris Bohjalian’s breadth as a writer is easily seen by scanning the contents of his books—water-dousing women, trauma victims, observations on small-town life, families with muddy pasts, transsexuals, homeopathy….but only by reading his novels do you come to understand the sensitivity, depth, and appeal of his characters.  They are always well- and completely-drawn, which makes Bohjalian’s dialogue work perfectly; it’s not ponderous, but it also doesn’t leave you wishing for more.  In a nutshell, his novels present complex people in complete stories, with compelling narrative.   

In Before You Know Kindness, Bohjalian introduces us to the quintessential American vacation:  the NH lake, the families who travel each year and whose children are seamlessly exchanged in each other’s lake cottages, the women who hold all semblance of order for their husbands and children…and one mistake, which shotgun-blasts the idyll away, calling into question the price of complacency.  Buffalo Soldiers brings a couple devastated by loss and treachery who introduces into their home and world a young boy who has nothing and feels nothing, until he hears the stories of Buffalo Soldiers.  From the boy’s healing, the couple also learns to heal.  The Double Bind combines two stories, both focused on memory and the way we write and re-write our personal life stories to make ourselves believe whatever we need to get through the day, and what happens when our personal narrative is confronted with the truth.  Double Bind will entrance you (and the end will probably surprise you greatly) as you become involved in the lives (both real and imagined) of two very different people:  a formerly-famous photographer who died homeless, and the wandering and lost college woman who finds his photographs.  Midwives, Law of Similars, and Water Witches focus on strong women whose lives and livelihoods are throwbacks to old times, and who are seemingly anti-modern (and sometimes anti-men).  These are complex stories that rest on the strength of the characters (not only then women, but their spouses, lovers, and children) and on story and plotline.  Along the way you’ll learn (and perhaps come to appreciate) midwifery, homeopathy, and dousing, and wonder whether progress can  come only with the price of losing knowledge that has borne humans through time.  Out of left field comes Trans-Sister Radio, a novel where you nearly need a scorecard to remember who loves whom and in what form.  It’s different, but it’s done well, so don’t be put off by the idea of a romance between a woman and a sensitive, kind man who…well, who knows he is meant to be a woman and who is undergoing procedures to become a woman.  While the lines of sexuality may get blurred, the underlying ideas about what qualities we seek in others never do.  Bohjalian's latest is different from his earlier novels:  it’s not set in the US (Germany) nor in the present-day (1945), and it’s based on the true story of a woman fleeing Nazis.  The opening scenes are chilling; you will soon become involved in the lives (and the loves) of these German refugees as they make their way in a new time and place.  It is a fine piece of historical fiction.   

And don’t forget:  Idyll Banter is Bohjalian’s non-fiction work, a set of amusing and stories (observations, he calls them) about life in a small Vermont town.  There’s more than just stories, of course, as each unpacks and details one seemingly-small (but really quite significant) aspect of life as he knows it.  These are a mix of Bill Bryson, Michael Perry, and Wendell Berry; this slim volume is not to be missed!