Jack Fuller (1946–2016)

There is a thrill to stumbling on a book that generates an energy that makes you want to furiously turn its pages. Sometimes that energy comes from the plot, a story seed so well-planted that the reader becomes nearly obsessed with the desire to know what happens next. Sometimes that energy comes from a character so original in voice or so besotted by secrets that you can’t help but follow them, like a friend, to the bitter end. And sometimes the very rhythm and beauty of the story’s show more prose carries you along like a wave and makes you forgive all other shortcomings the novel may have. Abbeville by Jack Fuller is not a novel that throbs with any such energy, but there is pleasure to be found in turning its pages.

The name of one of the novel’s two main characters, George Bailey, comes loaded with images of Jimmy Stewart reaching into his pocket to exuberantly exclaim, “JuJu’s petals!” then running through the streets crying out “Merry Christmas!” Exuberance is not an emotion on the radar of the George Bailey of Abbeville. The dot-com crash has left this George Bailey down in the dumps, but politely so. He’s not snapping at his depressed son or his every-pleasant wife, he’s not going to a bar to slug a schoolteacher’s husband. Instead, he heads to nearby Abbeville to find some answers by visiting the old haunt’s of his grandfather, Karl Schumpeter – a man who also lost it all to an economy gone bust.

Karl’s story is the dramatic heart of this novel. Like with George, exuberance and rage are not emotions that Karl seems even remotely familiar with. We are treated to moments of pleasure when Karl learns to fly-fish, or makes a tidy bundle of cash in the pits of the Board of Trade, or brings the first electric lights to Abbeville. There are also moments of sadness as a soldier in World War I, when he goes bankrupt and to jail, and when his brother dies; but it’s hard to worry too much about Karl. He has a steady head that he keeps up and pointed to the future as lesser men around him crumble.

The crisp arc of Karl’s story takes the interesting times of early 20th century American history and makes them come to life, succinctly and with a clarity that cuts through the romantic, soft-focus lens often trained on that era. Karl hops a freight train bound for Chicago and instead of staring out at the stars, he keeps a watchful eye for train detectives and worries about finding a good spot to disembark in secret. Where Jimmy Stewart’s bank vault is a place where two dollar bills can nestle and mate, Karl’s bank collapses and his vault holds nothing but ghosts. Not surprisingly, Karl survives his troubles and goes on to live a modest life where he finds joy in such small pleasures as delivering the mail, taking care of the school house, and fishing.

His grandson, George Bailey takes the fishing message to heart and in A River Runs Through It moment, George finds a way to connect with the tenuousness of his life and with his troubled son through fly-fishing. The fly-fishing fails to bring in the basket-full of cash to save George from the money troubles he dwells on earlier in the novel, but, like his grandfather, George takes it all in stride. Afterall, it’s a wonderful life! show less

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less