Mar. 5, 2010 - Author Luncheon with Chris Bohjalian

Quite often in a close-knit community, the less we truly know about others the more comfortable we are.  And so when the cracks in the perfect Eden of a small town in Vermont lead to a major chasm, the fallout affects all, but especially those who knew (but refused to acknowledge) that anything major was amiss.  The citizens of Haverill, Vermont, are rocked by a murder-suicide which should not, in retrospect, been altogether surprising.  A long-abused wife is murdered on the day of her baptism; her violent and paranoid husband then turns the gun on himself.  The townspeople accept the story presentation as is, until some of the other persons involved in the tableau (minister, daughter, and the Deputy State’s Attorney) begin to show by their inquiries and actions a series of slow cracks in the well-polished foundation of the story of Alice and George Hayward’s deaths.   It is only when Bohjalian presents three views of the same story does the story become complete, and while the character’s actions are not always surprising, their responses to the deaths and the fall-out afterwards certainly are.

Part of the story is told by a pastor who is well-liked if slightly diffident toward his parishioners:  they respect his privacy although they often cannot understand why he should want any.  As residents of a small town, they have little privacy themselves, and they aren’t accustomed to a man who is more cerebral than visceral, more analytical than empathetic.  But they have Reverend Stephen Drew in their sights as soon as they learn that he was a man capable of feeling, loving, and having secrets that didn’t concern them.  Drew, in response, is both horrified and surprised that his parishioners could respect him without supporting or liking him.  That knowledge, along with the deaths of George and Alice, makes him  determine that he can no longer lead people in faith, but that he may not even believe himself.    Why he has lost his faith seems clear on the surface at first; he’s subsequently driven to question whether anyone (himself included, the reader surmises) can be truly good.  He then acts completely out-of-character by both deserting his parishioners and seeking spiritual solace in a best-selling author/self-help guru who is the champion of ”angels among us”. 

Catherine Benincasa has seen enough in her career to know that everyone has secrets, and that nobody is to be taken at face value.  Just as Drew once fervently hoped for the possibility of complete good, Benincasa hopes that the bad among us do as little damage as possible.  Her glass-empty (not half empty; sucking-fumes empty) view has served her well, although it has made it impossible for her to be empathetic to anyone who may have a story to tell, or a reason for his or her actions.  In that respect, Benincasa is often unlikeable (as she should be) in the story, despite that outside of her job Benincasa is shown as a warm and loving person.  It is Benincasa who begins to question the circumstances leading up to and surrounding George and Alice’s deaths, and it is she who makes the reader first question Drew and his actions as well.  She is one of the spoilers of Haverill’s Eden.

Like all teenagers, Katie Hayward has secrets; but unlike most, Katie’s provide the keys to understanding precisely what happened in the Hayward home.   Katie’s narrative comes last and ties the other narratives together, and despite her tender age hers is the most explicit and raw.  Katie’s relationship with her parents and with others in town make clear that, to her, Haverill was never an Eden and the idea that for even a short time it is possible to know peace and happiness is a false one.  As Katie spends time with Heather Laurent, the author and believer of angels, she appears to soften somewhat.  But, like so many other faces in Haverhill, this one, too, may be a façade. -Sheila