Library Snag
Sunday--a half hour in the library after arriving from Dublin the previous day. Casting about trying to remember all of the things I read that I would like to read. Last minute I look for Jerry Gabriel--and Wonder of Wonders, it's there on the Shelf--Drowned Boy.
Digression: There is, incidentally, a real town of Moraine, now more a southern suburb of Dayton. When I started reading, because of the name of the town, I had placed Moraine up near Bellefontaine (pronounced, for you outsiders Bell fountain). That's where a lot of the glacial material is in Ohio. However, frequent reference to Chillicothe, Raccoon Creek, Portsmouth, and Huntington quickly changed the landscape for me and I began thinking Adams and Brown counties in Ohio.
Back on track: The point is that the stories create the sensation of the real, so real you want to place them on a map. Moraine is probably not the town south of Dayton that you can find on a map--it may be in more southeastern Ohio--but the town is real in the way the stories are told, in the passions of those who live in a very small town, in the interactions of the characters, in the humor and life of the characters themselves. I am very impressed so far--and I will be certain to keep you apprised of how I feel when I finish the entire collection.
(It was inspiring enough that last night I wrote a bit of my own Ohio project).
from "Atlas"Set in rural Ohio in a town named Moraine, Drowned Boy is a series of short stories that came highly recommended from other sources. I had been looking forward to it since hearing about it.
in Drowned Boy
Jerry Gabriel
Uncle Donald's mind was a unique land populated by all manner of improbably scenarios about the world.
********
Uncle Donald had an axe to grind with Catholicism, which as a nonpracticing but still-believing Catholic made my Dad uncomfortable. Like other aspects of Uncle Donald's character, this one just didn't make much sense; as far as I knew, he himself espoused no particular brand of religion, Christianity or otherwise. So any source of origin for the antipathy was possible---neo-Nazi propaganda at the bolt factory, anti-Kennedy sentiment from twenty years back; it was impossible to say. My suspicion was that it had to do with Notre Dame football.
In any case Notre Dame generally seemed to elicit it.
Digression: There is, incidentally, a real town of Moraine, now more a southern suburb of Dayton. When I started reading, because of the name of the town, I had placed Moraine up near Bellefontaine (pronounced, for you outsiders Bell fountain). That's where a lot of the glacial material is in Ohio. However, frequent reference to Chillicothe, Raccoon Creek, Portsmouth, and Huntington quickly changed the landscape for me and I began thinking Adams and Brown counties in Ohio.
Back on track: The point is that the stories create the sensation of the real, so real you want to place them on a map. Moraine is probably not the town south of Dayton that you can find on a map--it may be in more southeastern Ohio--but the town is real in the way the stories are told, in the passions of those who live in a very small town, in the interactions of the characters, in the humor and life of the characters themselves. I am very impressed so far--and I will be certain to keep you apprised of how I feel when I finish the entire collection.
(It was inspiring enough that last night I wrote a bit of my own Ohio project).
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