Castle FreemanReviews

This was a fun, well-written tale about a woman looking for help to deal with the town bully/kingpin who's stalking her. The town sheriff is no help, but points her to the local rowdy boys. She hooks up with one of the old boys there, and a young tough, who agree to solve her problem. The rest of their day is mostly taken up on a Homeresque journey trying to locate the bad guy in one of his gritty haunts. The writing is punchy and colored with a strong feel for small town Northeast.

3 bones!!!

I absolutely loved Freeman's book of linked stories, Round Mountain, which I read a few years ago. I immediately acquired Go with Me but for some unfathomable reason I left it languishing on shelf. I finally read it and it did not disappoint. This is a cool mix of Cormac McCarthy and Daniel Woodrell, with dialogue worthy of Elmore Leonard at his best. Lean, mean and starkly funny at times. At 170 pages, it will be over before you know it and you will be aching for more.

I read this book based on a Goodreads friend's review. Like her, I wondered what I was getting into for the first 30 pages and then the story began to pick up and I found it very entertaining. It is a very quick read and offers quite a bit of dark humor - qualities I like. The fairly singular plot is complicated, yet intriguing. The dialogue moves quickly and is very realistic. I liked it!

Round Mountain by Castle Freeman Junior is a collection of twelve short stories all set in the backwoods of Round Mountain, Vermont and connected to each other by the reoccurring character, Homer Patch. Homer is a local boy, born and raised in Round Mountain, grows up to become the second county constable and eventually retires and is a genial, helpful good ol’ boy who hangs out with his cronies.

The stories are spread over decades, and each one covers an incident in Homer’s life. In this small rural community, the stories become significant as we learn about the people of the area, their fears, disappointments and hopes for the future. The author writes beautifully and even the most mundane moments come alive. Like fading snapshots the author has captured Homer and many other characters as they live their sometimes difficult lives. This is an author that knows his territory and captures the ebb and flow effortlessly.

Round Mountain is a wonderful collection and while I first fell in love with this author’s writing when I read “All That I Have”, this set of stories only adds to my admiration. His prose is sparse, but each word is chosen perfectly and captures the feeling of rural New England.½

A short and engaging thriller. Castle Freeman Jr.’s excellent writing ability helps elevate a story that lacks compelling characters.

Castle Freeman Jr. offers some interesting characters and situations that are certainly believable. Even so, I didn't feel a connection to the stories or the people so much beyond recognizing the locales he talked about and recognizing the people (or at least being familiar with people who are just like the characters). I'm not sure if this book would be of interest to people living outside of Vermont or at least familiar with Vermont, but it does offer accurate portrayals even if the situations - a lost young man, ladies of ill repute, a robbery of sorts - give some weight to the tales.

I should add that the book was free - it was created to raise money for Hurricane Irene relief (although it was Tropical Storm Irene by the time it hit Vermont and caused horrendous flood damage).

This one gets a firm 2.5 out of 5. Described as "lean and muscular", I found a surprising amount of unnecessary fat between its slim 160 pages. There are pages and pages of dialogue with Whizzer and DB and Coop that just circle endlessly, go nowhere, and add nothing to the story. I'd guess at least 4-5 full chapters, or about a quarter of the book.

Aside from that, the dialogue, while somewhat realistic, does tend to drone, in its choppy, staccato fashion, and I found toward the end that it became grating.

Finally, I have a hard time buying into two men willingly taking on the area badass simply because they're asked to, with no real motivation beyond that.

That being said, there were also some good points: the basic story overall, Nate the Great and Lester Speed, some of the interactions.

But all in all, it fell distinctly in the middle of the pack for me.

Couldn't get into it, didn't finish.

Recently I came across [All That I Have] and loved it, so I scurried to find another of [[Castle Freeman]]'s novels. Then I waited, afraid I wouldn't love it as much as the first.
But this one is even better. I am in awe, actually. Everything about the novel is so right, all the ingredients I love, including strangers riding around in a car together all day: the structure, the characters, the theme, the dialogue, the SETTING! Are all rural places the same? Well, they share commonalities, for sure, but Freeman knows Vermont. Really knows. There's a reason this state is still underpopulated, besides it being winter 7 months of the year, it is beautiful, but great swathes are not suitable for anything but admiring from afar. Even logging in those forests is treacherous and hard. That came across in [All That I Have] too. There is nothing cute and cuddly about this version of Vermont either. There is beauty, there is community, there is humor aplenty and there is danger and suspense. All in 155 pages. A young woman comes to the sheriff (retired in [All That I Have] wanting him to do something about a man who is stalking her, Blackway. Well, Blackway is the local villain, disliked and feared, but . . . well . . . Blackway, so you leave him alone, stay out of his way. The sheriff tells her to go look for this fella, Scotty Cavanaugh at the old chair factory. She does that and finds two knights, one old and one young, in tarnished, no, in NO armor but cunning and muscle to help her. They will find Blackway and they will take care of him. At the chair factory a greek chorus of older men spend the day chatting, playing cards, musing, and . . . there are delicious hints of divine (or semi-divine) intervention. And even some romantical nudging of two young people who just might suit.

Describing a man at one of those off in the middle of nowhere country bars that is only for drinking and fighting: "He was a big one, all right: six and a half feet and in no way skinny, with a long tangled beard that hung from his chin to his chest. The beard was black at the sides and gray down the middle and made the man look like he was in the act of eating a skunk headfirst."

Humor: "[The Fort] was not the kind of bar where you stopped for a drink on your way home from work. It was the kind of bar where you stopped for many drinks on your way to work, until soon enough they fired you and you could spend your whole day at the Fort."

A total joy. *****

The novel All That I Have was my first experience with the author Castle Freeman Jr. But it certainly won’t be my last. This is a captivating story about Sheriff Lucian Wing as he faces the trials and tribulations of his daily life. In his quiet, laconic manner this Vermont country sheriff deals with both domestic concerns about his marriage, local crime enforcement, and an upcoming election.

For Lucien, being sheriff is like being a shepherd guiding his flock. He would rather resolve most encounters peacefully, without resorting to gun-play or violence. When a local bad boy makes the mistake of stealing something from the home of a Russian gangster, Lucien knows that he must retrieve and return the stolen item, get the local boy to safety and encourage the Russians to leave his county. Concealing his sharp wit and keeping a low profile with no uniform and no gun, Lucien is often underestimated but he understands people and knows how to get the job done.

All That I Have is a brilliantly written story. The author uses sparse prose, but each word fits perfectly. The humor comes from his knowledge of people and how they think and act. I was reminded of another favorite character, Sheriff Walt Longmire of Wyoming, both of these men are thoughtful, caring of their community and use humor as a very effective weapon. I listened to an audio version of the story as read by Steven Roy Grimsley, whose voice fit the story perfectly. I highly recommend All That I Have by Castle Freeman Jr.

Okay, so, yeah, I'm likely biased as the book is set in Vermont, but, hey! I've disliked many a book set in Veremont. But Freeman gets Vermont. Someone asked me the other day why anyone at all lives here (or , I suppose places like North Dakota). I don't know why anyone would live in North Dakota, but I know I live here because I like the attitude that, so far has continued to prevail despite pressures. That is an unlikely mix of respect for the individual and a reliance on community. Not logical, definitely not quite rational, this attitude could even be described as inconsistebnt, contradictory or paradoxical. So here we have the county sheriff, Lucian Wing, a man trained in the old school style, that in a small community where you really know everyone you take each person as they come. If something is not as it should be you don't slam the law down, you wait to see what develops, and if you stretch the law here and there in order to give a rambunctious youth a second (or third) chance, well, it ain't broke, merely stretched. State police enforce law, sheriffs, according to Wing, have a different mandate. When people come in (in this case Russian criminals stowing money in real estate) who don't respect the locals or the local ways, when their mansion is robbed and they are angry, and you all know who did it, you wait them out too, coldly and determinedly, and like a coyote (we have lots of them), you outwit them, even surprise them into respecting you. Anyway it's a great story, well told. *****

When a Vermont state trooper finds a naked man tied to a tree, for Sheriff Lucian Wing it's the beginning of a run of knotty problems with his mercurial wife, intransigent underlings and Russian mobsters. Wing steers by the advice he was given by his aging mentor, which is 50 percent judicious wisdom and 50 percent cornpone gibberish. Freeman endows his leading man with a likable calm, though, and keeps the action moving crisply along, making "All That I Have" an estimable sequel to his first novel "Go With Me" (2007). From the WASHINGTON POST, 4/29/09

I lost interest halfway through, but probably only because another book was calling me. What I read was pretty good, but slow.

“Go with Me” is a fast-paced, dialogue-driven moderate-suspense drama. This 2008 novel is set in the woods of Vermont and begins with the sheriff finding Lillian asleep in her car with a kitchen knife outside of the court house. She is being stalked by the local thug, Blackway, who has broken into her car and killed her cat. The sheriff can’t do anything about it and instead sends her to Whizzer and his band of friends. Amongst them, the elder Lester and the muscular Nate the Great join Lillian to help resolve this, but first, they need to find him. And what will happen when they do?

The book’s chapters alternated between the trio looking for Blackway and the gang back in the old Mill house that Whizzer owns. The trio find cohorts of Blackway and muscle or trick them for clues of his whereabouts. Meanwhile, the gang’s dialogue slowly reveals their backstories, especially that of wily Lester who knows all the “tricks”. Whizzer and his friends have a Robin Hood vibe, mocking, prodding each other, finishing each other’s sentences and will have each other’s back. Lester and Nate, though different in age, also had the same chemistry. In contrast, I was quite annoyed by Lillian’s character, asking for help but never trusted their decisions and questioned each step. I would have ditched her long time ago! Lol.

I found the book enjoyable, appreciating the wry humor the most. Though the rapid dialogue was part of the enjoyment, it also made the book feel like a script at times. Sure enough, a quick search revealed this was made into a movie, titled “Blackway”.

One thing I didn’t need to learn – a tree with a conveniently located knothole is called a “woods wife”.½

An odd book. Short stories connected by character & place. Little episodes or, in many cases, non-episodes. I enjoyed reading it, though he's not a writer of the first order. The best one is The Gift of Loneliness. When I got the end I thought I'd turned over two pages by mistake. "Eh?" I said , and then I cast my mind back and there's a throw away comment earlier on that makes the whole thing oh so deliciously clever. There're lots of little connections throughout the whole book but none as good as that one. It's designed to be read from beginning to end, like a novel.

Langdon Taft, now retired from everything and deep into the spell of Scotch whiskey, has made a Faustian bargain with the devil’s representative, Dangerfield (“a bit of ‘dude’), and may have whatever he likes for seven months before his contract is up and he goes to “the hot place.” He first asks for four new tires for his old truck so it will pass inspection. But, Taft may have a bit of life left in him yet and Dangerfield may have met his match .

Set in rural Vermont, this short tale is fast-paced and peppered with a witty, home-brewed dialogue. I blew through its 190 pages in more or less one sitting. Though certainly not as compelling as Freeman’s [Go With Me] or [All That I Have], this novel was a bit o’ fun when I needed some.½

Castle Freeman, Jr. is a very good writer. So good that you never notice that his writing is any good at all; you're too busy following the rapidly moving plot, in which the tension is gradually mounting and things are about to go very wrong. You don't even notice the pitch perfect tone of the dialog because it sounds just like ordinary people sound, while talking about ordinary things. The cadences and patterns fall so perfectly that they are invisible and all you notice is a couple of old guys shooting the breeze.

In Go with Me, Lillian sits in her old car in the parking lot behind the sheriff's office. Armed with a paring knife, she waits to tell him that Blackaway's after her. He's killed her cat and he's coming after her. The sheriff sends her to the old mill to ask Scottie for help. What she gets isn't him, but an unlikely pair of protectors who set out for the backwoods of the lost towns to find Blackaway and get him to leave her alone.

Go With Me is a short book, but it's full of atmosphere and foreboding. There's not a wasted word in the book and each character is fully fleshed out in so few words, they shouldn't feel as fully alive as they do. Set in a forgotten corner of rural Vermont, Go With Me is close to perfect.

Now this one was very good. Castle Freeman, Jr. has written an altogether enjoyable and compassionate book about a sheriff of a rural county in Vermont, whose marriage is faltering and a rival is threatening his position in an upcoming election. Lucian Wing holds to the principles he's been using since he joined local law enforcement and he sees no reason to alter course, despite Russian gangsters and home-grown threats.

The strength of All That I Have centers on Wing's voice. He's careful and thoughtful and has a dryly humorous way of expressing himself that makes every page a delight.

This collection of interconnected short stories is set in rural Vermont, but the people and places described so beautifully by the author could have been lifted intact from my childhood in Northeastern Pennsylvania. In fact, while reading one of the stories I felt I was walking around inside a house I knew very well as a kid. I'd say Freeman has created an incredibly real world, except that I know he didn't make any of this stuff up. Maybe the stories came from his imagination, but the settings are tangible, and the people aren't "characters"...they exist too. The first couple stories seem almost unfinished, but as you read further you realize that they belong to the collection, and each subsequent story adds another piece to the whole. Some of them stand alone very well, while others need to be read in context of their companions to reveal their full impact.

Wow and wow again. Loved these stories. Whatever ways rural life in Vermont is the same or different from other places, you can find out here. At times the hair on the back of my neck prickled because it sounded so much like my own village, complete to the silent boy on the rocker. I've been in old Holiday's house, too, although not in Vermont but in a little town in rural Western New York State. The stories are loosely intertwined, Homer Patch is in all of them, sometimes a boy, sometimes a man pushing on elderly. He's the can-do man of the area, steady and reliable, a man who can set aside anger and seek a non-violent solution to most conflict but also, in his own way mysterious (even to himself) marrying a much younger woman and doing nothing when she sleeps around relentlessly. Strong stuff, but not without humor and a marvelous wise tenderness. *****

I didn't like this book. The author was too wordy and too descriptive for my taste. This book was definitely not my type of book.

A collection of twelve stories, all of which take place in a small northeastern town near Round Mountain. Each story had previously been published separately between 1993 and 2005. The characters are all connected, although the stories are not in any particular order. There is nothing monumental about any of them. I have simultaneously been reading John Steinbeck's "Cannery Row," and these stories bring that to mind. Quiet, uneventful, but full of meaning.

Homer Patch is a deputy sheriff. He is quiet, kind and the main focus of these twelve stories, set in a rural Vermont community. These are bittersweet snapshots, capturing Homer and an array of other small town characters. Each story touches down on a different period in their simple, sometimes difficult lives. We follow Homer, as he deals with an unfaithful wife, a special needs son and several childhood friends who have gone “off the rails”.
These are spare, beautiful tales, told with nuance and insight. Freeman understands and adores these people and it clearly shines through every word.½

Author Castle Freeman, Jr. presents a collection of short stories centered around the townspeople of small, rural community called Round Mountain. The collection weaves together a tale of country life that many readers will identify with.

The stories are tied together through the central character, Homer Patch. Homer's friends come and go as we follow them from their youthful antics through middle age and into old age. As the characters age, their true colors start to show. Each story builds upon the reader's understanding of the individual characters and their interactions.

The Bottom Line: This collection of previously published short stories is beautifully written. I enjoyed the antics of the townsfolk; many reminded me of people I grew with in a small town. My favorite stories in this collection were "Charity Suffers Long" and "The Women at Holiday's." Enthusiastically recommended for anyone who enjoys stories about country life. It's the perfect reading for a lazy weekend.

This review also appears at The Mini Book Bytes Book Review Blog: http://minibookbytes.blogspot.com/

This is not just a random collection of short stories--they all tie together, primarily through Homer, sometime handyman, sometime deputy. Although not strictly presented in chronological order, we can appreciate the character development over a span of, let's say, 30 some years. Homer doesn't talk a lot, but does say more than the stereotyped New Englander's "ayup". He is thoughtful, sensitive, but he is not afraid of letting wayward teens know he can use force if need be--but usually gives them a chance to avoid trouble. While another reviewer might have characterized him as a Mayberry-type officer, Homer isn't perfect. Having a special needs son myself, my attention was caught by the scattered references to Quentin.
A cohesive theme is the experiences and expectations of city immigrants to this rural Vermont township and contrast with the lives and perceptions of the local residents. Specifically, we see how Clay changes from feeling like an outsider to being part of the community.
One thing that I puzzled over throughout the entire book, is what Homer meant when he was talking about his experience when he tried living in the big city (p. 18) "I didn't see anybody down there like me," said Homer. "You mean from here?" "No," said Homer. "I mean like me." Let me know if you can figure it out.