If I tell you that this is a novel that begins with a death, ends with a death, and has plenty of disasters and tragedies in between, you'll probably think it sounds pretty depressing. But it's not. Desperately sad, certainly, but wonderfully evocative, rich, humane, and that old cliche, thought-provoking.
The novel tells the story of Loyal Blood, who, in terror and remorse, leaves his family farm after concealing the body of his girlfriend Billy who has died accidentally during their lovemaking. It is 1944. For the next forty and more years, Loyal is on the road, working as a gold miner, an assistant astronomer, a fossil hunter, a trapper, a farmer. An intelligent and able man, he could have done many successful things with his life, but he is pursued by bad luck, forced to keep moving, unable to touch another woman, and his only contact with his family is through the yearly postcards he sends, never with a return address. So it is that he never finds out what happens to his family after he leaves -- the financial disasters on the farm, his father's suicide in prison following a faked insurance claim, his brother's move to Florida to become a successful real-estate agent, his sister's marriage to a man she meets through a newspaper ad, and much much more.
So this is Loyal's story, and his family's story, but it is also the story of America. America intensely imagined, beautifully described, as Loyal makes his often weary way from Vermont through endless landscapes of endless different states, eating in cheap cafes, sleeping wherever he needs to end up, meeting varied, eccentric, difficult, and wholly believable characters. As the years go by the nation changes -- the old ways of farming and trapping are gradually eroded, wealth increases in some areas, society in the cities becomes increasingly rough and dangerous.
I've seen this described as the new great American novel and I think this sounds right. Whatever you may think about this, I would urge you to read it if you haven't done so. It's unforgettably moving and you will be thinking about it for a long time afterwards.
