None But the Dead and Dying
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
"Behrens' novel has the quiet but charged atmosphere of a withheld thunderstorm... A teenaged girl is drawn to a reclusive middle-aged saxophone player. An Indian drifter and an elderly spinster drink Scotch together at sunset... The result is a novel made up of small moments of illumination, like porch lights guiding the way home." -- Columbus Dispatch
"Her writing takes on the energy and freedom of [a] bluesy saxophone, making music that soars." -- The New York Times Book Review
An Ohio farmer, digging a waterline, uncovers an ancient Native American burial ground, triggering subtle yet meaningful changes all over the small town nearby.
"When Ellen Behrens transports us to a belfry at midnight, as a great unsung saxman practices in an attic where he thinks he can't be heard, we realize how much we are given by those who hide, and what a wealth of things lie hidden." -- First edition hardcover blurb
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Emphasis on motivation and plot give way to evocation of mood in this dreamlike first novel about the residents of a sleepy Ohio town who awaken to long-dormant sexual yearnings when an ancient Indian burial ground is unearthed in their midst. During the hot summer days that follow, the Reverend Clayton Bleu embarks upon an improbable sexual adventure with the newly widowed Contessa Welch, while teenager Crescent St. Clair seduces Theodore Thompson, a middle-aged recluse whose plaintive saxophone playing has haunted the community for decades. Eventually, a conflict over the fate of the burial ground arises among the townspeople, archeologists and Native American activists. In an apparently deliberate nod to Sherwood Anderson, who used the author's hometown of Clyde, Ohio, as the setting for Winesburg, Ohio, Behrens is more concerned with the character of her imagined town than with its individual denizens; the couplings and re-couplings there are manifestations of a general sexual and spiritual restlessness. The resolution of the plot is abrupt, and the narrative suffers from some quasi-mystical pronouncements and the occasional awkward metaphor, but Behrens's language is rich, her portraits of small-town folk ring true and she is able to intuit, and to make manifest, intimations of the sacred that seep into everyday life. Author tour.
