Abbeville (edition 2008)

From My Blog...

When the Dot-com craze went from boom to bust, George Bailey decided he needed to reevaluate his life, and as his world was crumbling around him, he found himself thinking of his grandfather more often than not, a man who went from a farmer to a very prosperous man until the collapse of the stock market, and yet managed to pick himself up again and carry on. Abbeville by Jack Fuller is the story of Karl Schumpeter and the lessons his grandson George learns from retracing his grandfather's steps, researching his life and through his own memories of his grandfather. Fuller's novel is based rather loosely on his own grandfather and makes for an intriguing look at history and the manner in which history repeats itself. Jack Fuller takes the reader to Abbeville, a small farm town in Illinois, where Karl's life was forever changed.
Karl's father sent him to be an apprentice to his Uncle John Schumpeter who first teaches him to keep ledgers and where he learned the logging trade and a few life lessons that served him well later in life, courtesy of the Dutchman Hoekstra. After his time in Michigan, Karl headed to Chicago where he quickly found himself on the trading floors. Much to his delight, the girl he had been sweet on was also in Chicago that summer apprenticing as a seamstress and Karl and Cristina began to plan a life together. The reader is drawn into the rich history of logging and transitioned easily to the trading floors of Chicago, leading up to the stock market crash of 1929, The Great Depression and WWI. Through it all, the reader grows closer to Karl, a young man who has a tender heart and an eagerness to learn. Fuller takes the reader through the tumultuous times and demonstrates the strength, courage and tenacity to ride the currents of not only the prosperous times, but also the desperate times, of which Karl experiences his fair share.
Abbeville is an astonishingly beautiful novel of subtle lessons passed down through generations and through the memory of George, the reader learns about five generations and the amazing history that accompanies those generations in a rapidly paced novel. The lessons Karl passed down are subtle, yet powerful ones and they are lessons George ultimately recalls and shares with his son Rob. Life is rarely an easy ride and the measure of a person can often be found in how well they deal with the hardest times in their lives. I would not hesitate to recommend Abbeville to any reader, especially those interested in history and multi-generational family relationships. Abbeville is a quick and powerful read and one that would be perfect for a discussion group. ( )

Abbeville, by Jack Fuller
I was more disappointed in this book than in anything I’ve read in a long time. The author is a talented writer, the subject matter interesting and unique, the characters empathetic, but the gaps and jumps in the narration were akin to watching a movie that starts with a disclaimer stating the film “has been modified from its original version to run in the time allotted and edited for content.”
The book begins with the grandson of the main character, Karl Schrumpeter, returning to the small Illinois farm town his grandfather steered through times of growth and prosperity and into the Great Depression. With the stage set, the author returns to the point of view of Karl and begins to relate his life story. Besides his hometown of Abbeville, Karl’s story also takes him to Chicago (providing an interesting glimpse into the workings of the Chicago Board of Trade near the end of the 19th century), and to the horrors of the trenches of France during World War I. Karl also travels to a logging camp in the north woods of Michigan, where he starts a lifelong love affair with fly fishing. The author is adept at switching between the story of the grandfather and the narrator, who has just lost his fortune, security, and sense of identity with the dot com bust, and apparently wants to find answers to his future in how his grandfather handled his own downturn in fortune.
So all the pieces are in place for a satisfying and impactful read…but something goes wrong. I am going to give the credit for this book’s failure to the editor. Either that person neglected to make the writer go back and flesh out the missing connections, or cut out the parts that would have moved this manuscript from ‘okay’ to ‘memorable’.
It’s a real shame, because the plot has a solid foundation and the writer, Jack Fuller, has a descriptive yet smooth writing style that is easy to fall into. Unfortunately, too many storylines and several key characters are abandoned before they can make their contribution to the overall story. For me, the book ended so abruptly that I turned the page to continue reading and found only blank pages left, completely missing any cues that the last paragraph was, indeed “The End.”
Still, if you approach this book as an unfinished painting, you will find a great deal to enjoy; just don’t expect to walk away with a sense of fulfillment. ( )

Abbeville is a short, well-written novel built on a solid structure, but it should be twice as long to do justice to the story Jack Fuller attempts. The book tells the parallel stories of the narrator’s attempt to rebuild his life after the bursting of the dot-com bubble and his grandfather’s own boom and bust struggle in the Great Depression.

The grandfather’s story predominates and involves several complex subplots. The central theme to the story is the conflict between the grandfather’s desire to succeed and his perceived duty to help people. This themes plays out primarily in the relationship between the grandfather and his younger brother, whose wastrel ways result in the grandfather’s financial and social downfall.

Unfortunately, there is not enough flesh on the bones. Both the plot and the characters are too sparsely drawn to make them compelling. For example, the key act that culminates in the grandfather’s ruin is described so cryptically, in just one brief sentence, that the reader must speculate about why what happened happened. At least one key storyline just ends with no explanation other than that people often disappeared during the Great Depression. Other story lines simply fizzle out.

Without details, the characters and their relationships are flat and stiff. The tension between the brothers is described so sparingly that it is difficult to fully understand the relationship, let alone to care about it. The grandfather comes off as less a noble man sacrificing for his internal sense of honor as an unsympathetic, thick headed martyr. The narrator never rises above a character sketch of a concerned but clueless father.

It could be that Fuller was trying for a style as strong, clean, and minimalist as his rural Midwest setting. But the result reads more like an unfinished outline. ( )

How do you go on when you have lost everything?

That’s the question at the heart of Abbeville. George Bailey has lost everything in the dot-com bust. His office, which once bustled with activity and the smell of money, is now deserted. He may lose his home and he has to pull his son out of private school. How can he keep his family together in the face of such a change?

George goes back to his roots, back to his hometown of Abbeville. His grandfather, Karl, once owned the mill, the bank, and a lot of the land around it…and he lost it all in the Depression. Still, his grandfather held onto his wife, his daughter and his will to be happy. George goes looking for the source of Karl’s happiness and he finds strength to keep going. In the process, he gives his son something to hang on to, a foundation for an insecure boy facing a lot of changes. The material sounds sad, but the tone is very hopeful. ( )

Abbeville is the story of George Bailey and his grandfather Karl’s life. George finds himself reminiscing about his grandfather’s financial rise and fall in the town of Abbeville, Indiana, after he himself fails financially in the dot com bust.

The story begins with George returning to Abbeville, a place where he spent summers with his grandparents, then switches to the grandfather as a young man making his first trip to Chicago to learn business from an uncle. The author progresses through Karl’s life while occasionally jumping back to the present and George’s situation. George seems to compare his situation to that of his grandfather’s. However, his grandfather went through much harder times than George could imagine going through himself.

Although this was a difficult story for me to get through, I enjoyed it very much. I was impressed with the writing style of the author. The novel was well written and had a nice flow. At first, I would have wished for a smoother segue between the past and present but was able to overcome my discomfort as I ready further in to the story. By the end, I was waiting with anticipation to find out what happened to both Karl and George. I would recommend this story to friends and family. ( )