September Song - Hardcover

Bittersweet tales that commemorate the ``dying fall'' of loves, lives, and powers from acclaimed writer and novelist Humphrey (No Resting Place, 1989, etc.). Most of the 20 stories, some only a page or two long, and all beautifully crafted, are preoccupied, like the songwriter, with the reality that ``the days draw down from September.'' In the title piece, Virginia Tyler, aged 76, is asked by the love of her life, now a widower, to marry him; but though she asks her husband of 42 years for a divorce, ``she felt her sense of purpose falter, as the weight of years settled upon her. He and she were teamed together to the end by the yoke of years.'' The apple farmer in ``The Apple of Discord,'' heartbroken that his children refuse to work the family farm, sells most of the land to developers; but after a failed suicide attempt, he ``trudged up to the house to serve out his indefinite sentence,'' realizing that God's purpose was not to be subverted. In other notable stories, an aging journalist finds his once-active life ended by his increasing deafness: ``Nature had made him deaf, he made himself dumb'' (``The Dead Languages''); a woman's blindness destroys her own and two others' lives because ``humankind itself demanded justice for the crime done to one of its pitiful'' (``An Eye for an Eye''); and a husband who, believing in his wife's long-unrecognized artistic talent, must sell his beloved fly-fishing rods to pay for the professional expenses that she, unaware of this and the many other sacrifices he has made for her, has incurred, is ``silenced by the look on her face of fixed dejection'' (``Vissi d'Arte''). Not on the cutting edge but, like Wallace Stegner, occupies that often undervalued high-middle-ground. A book to savor and reread. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Irony pervades these 20 stories by the venerable author of Home From the Hill and other notable works. Some are facile, undeveloped fragments; others suffer from a sameness of tone, the bitterness of their mostly middle-aged or elderly characters. "The Apple of Discord" features a manipulative apple grower whose obsessive desire to leave his farm to his daughter motivates behavior that violates credibility. Another bitter man determined to impose his will on others is the art dealer deluded about his wife's talent in "Vissi d'Arte." The melodramatic plot of "An Eye for an Eye" recalls the domestic situation in Wharton's Ethan Frome . Yet several memorable entries show Humphrey in top form. The protagonist of the psychologically astute title story is a 78-year-old woman who almost decides to divorce her husband and marry her former lover. In the poignant "The Dead Languages," an ex-reporter understands that his loss of hearing will sever his ties to the spoken word and the wider world. "Dead Weight" is a tightly told, intriguing tale of a curmudgeonly bachelor, an antiques "picker" by trade, who finds himself saddled with a disabled, dying dealer. Several wonderful, ironic twists keep the story buoyant. Humphrey's prose is sure and resonant; in the best stories here, he again proves himself a master of his craft.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.