books by Russell Banks | Seattle Book Mama

American Spirits is a collection of three short stories that take place in the fictional New England town of Sam Dent. My thanks go to NetGalley and Alfred A. Knopf for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

I wasn’t sure this book would be up to Banks’s usual standard, as it was published posthumously, more than a year following his death. Sometimes a successful author will have a book that isn’t their best, and they’ll toss it in a drawer in hopes of improving and publishing it later. When they die, their heirs find the book and seeing dollar signs, send it off to a publisher. Still, though, Russell Banks’s sloppy seconds are still going to be vastly better than your average successful author’s best effort, so I decided to take a look. And holy crap, it’s actually one of his finest!

One thing any uninitiated reader must know is the Banks is brutal. If the story seems to be leading up to something pretty bad happening, the unwary might anticipate that the author will pull it out of the water at the last minute in order to send the readers away with smiles on their faces. Banks doesn’t do that. With stories by Banks, the main question is whether all of the important characters are going to die, or only some of them. He is unflinchingly brutal, but oh honey, he does it so well that I wish I could thank him for it!

One of the things that underlies everything Banks writes is his deep knowledge of, and appreciation for, the working class. His own hardscrabble background most likely plays a role, but one way or the other, the struggles of the ordinary man or woman, usually living in rural parts or small towns in New England are depicted with such care, distilling vast amounts of tiny details into the briefest of spaces that I believe the character and I believe the setting. Banks is also, to the best of my knowledge, the first to set a story in a manufactured home or mobile home court.

The first story, “Nowhere Man”, is about a man that sells off part of his land to a newcomer, partially because of a private agreement that the two make, but that isn’t ever codified. The new owner eventually goes back on his word; the original owner is having none of it; and then all hell breaks loose.

The second, “Homeschooling,” is about an average family whose life is changed when newcomers with a somewhat bizarre parenting style move in next door; when the emaciated children sneak over at night to beg for food, they become involved.

The final story, “Kidnapped,” is about a couple of senior citizens that are kidnapped and held until the drugs that their grandson’s addicted mother has filched are returned.

When I read Banks, I tell myself not to get attached to the characters, but he’s smarter than I am, so I can’t help myself.

There is something deeply satisfying in reading an author that has the confidence to buck literary trends. I wish that Banks, who was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, could have lived and written fiction forever, but the legacy he has left us is the next best thing. Highly recommended.

“Oh, Canada!”

Leonard Fife is a legendary filmmaker, his searing social commentary an important part of North American history. But now he is dying, and he has a few things he needs to get off his chest before he goes. My thanks go to Net Galley and Harper Collins for the review copy. This book is available to the public March 2, 2021.

Fife is not a lovable character, and now that the end is near, he wants everyone to know it. With the cameras trained on him, darkness all around him but for the spot shining on him as he speaks, he tells his life’s story, and he spares himself nothing. One relationship after another, abandoned without even a goodbye. Children left fatherless. Lives laid waste in his passing. Banks is one of the most brilliant novelists in the U.S., and his word smithery can turn nearly any terrible story into spun gold, but he never pulls punches. His writing is often painful to read, and here it is true in spades, agonizing. By the halfway mark, I am watching the page numbers crawl by and wishing it over.

But of course, there’s a surprise in store.

I don’t want to give spoilers, but in the last half of the book, the question arises as to whether our narrator is reliable. He says he did all of these dreadful things; but did he really…?

The book flows so seamlessly that the difficulty of writing it is not obvious, but here it is: almost the entire thing is one man’s narrative. There’s very little dialogue. It’s not an easy thing to carry off, and yet, this is Banks, and he does.

As his narrative unspools, we are occasionally reminded of his current circumstances by breaks in the action. Once in awhile he is overtaxed and starts to drift off, or worse, and action has to cease immediately while the nurse does important things quickly. Now and then she has to change his bag, or help him onto the toilet and wipe his butt afterward. There’s not a lot of dignity left to the man. But he doesn’t give a…okay, I’m not saying it.

As he insistently recounts his many betrayals of loved ones, ignoring the more suitable, conventional questions that the people filming him thought were going to provide the framework of the film, he makes it crystal clear that it doesn’t bother him in the slightest, what he is doing to his legacy. Torpedo all of it; hell, he’ll be dead before the film opens. What he wants is to be truthful, and the one person he wants to know the truth is Emma, his wife. He knows he cannot be truthful with her unless the camera is rolling, and he won’t proceed unless she is there. RIGHT there. He calls for her many times, making certain she hasn’t left. And through the occasional things she says, we are aware that Emma is not merely his arm candy, not a sycophant that married him for fame, fortune, or prestige; she’s a respected professional in her own field, juggling her own commitments in order to be present here and now for Leonard.

By the time the story ends, my feelings have changed. Leonard is still no angel, but he’s not the sack of excrement I believed him to be, either. The guy I hate at the end is the filmmaker, once Leonard’s protegee, but now wolfishly eager for his mentor to die on camera for him. The nurse orders the camera turned off, but the director calls over the top of her to keep it rolling, the vulture. I want to smack him!

Ultimately we see that death is a final betrayal, a form of abandonment; but Leonard is at peace, because his goal is realized. And this is the story’s title, but I am not going to tell you how that works.

Get the book and read it. All your own sorrows will feel smaller.