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ERNIE’S ARK
By Monica Wood
189 pp. San Francisco:
Chronicle Books. $22.95.
By Laurie Meunier Graves
Ernie’s Ark by Monica Wood is a novel masquerading as a series of
interconnected short stories. There is a beginning, middle, and end to the
book as a whole as well as for the individual pieces. There are several
themes—loss, disappointment, and, miraculously, connection—that run through
all the stories and tie them with each other. Some of the characters are
given more than one story, and many make guest appearances in stories that
are not their own. More importantly, the stories have a collective movement
that is propelled forward by the various narratives.
And it all comes together in a way that is both gripping and moving. Ms.
Wood blends the short story form with the novel to create vivid characters
and an aching portrait of modern life in Abbot Falls, a fictional mill town
in Maine. In Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster wrote, “the novelist must
bounce us; that is imperative.” Ms. Wood certainly bounces us, from
character to character and situation to situation.
“Ernie’s Ark,” which is the first story as well as the book’s title, begins
with sadness and anger. For eight months there has been a strike at the
mill, Atlantic Pulp & Paper, and Ernie Whitten’s wife, Marie, is dying of
cancer. Before the strike began, Ernie was three weeks away from retirement,
but of course that has been put on hold. With no job, no retirement, and his
wife’s impending death, Ernie hardly knows what to do with himself. Then,
confronted with the wreckage of his apple trees by boys on dirt bikes, Ernie
comes up with a plan. He will build an ark and enter it in a contest that is
sponsored by the college in a city not far from Abbot Falls.
Ernie builds his ark, and it becomes a symbol of hope as well as a statement
of fortitude in response to the many sorrows of life. The ark, like the
paper mill, weaves in and out of the various stories, and both provide a
sort of framework for the book.
The rest of the stories fan out from the first one. Among the many
characters, there is Henry John McCoy, the CEO of the mill, who has problems
of his own; Marie Whitten, Ernie’s wife, with her own past disappointments
and traumas; Dan Little, betrayed by his younger brother; Francine Love, who at eight, decides Dan Little’s ex-wife would be the perfect stepmother and begins to lay her
plans.
By the end of the book, we know the characters very well and feel affection
and sympathy for all of them, even the CEO. In these days of exposed
corporate wrongdoings, this is no small accomplishment, and it is a
testament to Ms. Wood’s skill as a writer that she is able to present so
many points of view with such empathy.
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2008 Wolf Moon Desk Calendar
We are pleased to announce that we have put together another snappy desk calendar
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