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Summary
Summary
"You have lost everything, yes?" Everything? Henry thought; he considered the word. Had he lost everything?
Fleeing New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Henry Garrett is haunted by the ruins of his marriage, a squandered inheritance, and the teaching job he inexplicably quit. He pulls into a small Virginia town after three days on the road, hoping to silence the ceaseless clamor in his head. But this quest for peace and quiet as the only guest at a roadside motel is destroyed when Henry finds himself at the center of a bizarre and violent tragedy. As a result, Henry winds up stranded at the ramshackle motel just outside the small town of Marimore, and it's there that he is pulled into the lives of those around him: Latangi, the motel's recently widowed proprietor, who seems to have a plan for Henry; Marge, a local secretary who marshals the collective energy of her women's church group; and the family of an old man, a prisoner, who dies in a desperate effort to provide for his infirm wife.
For his previous novels John Gregory Brown has been lauded for his "compassionate vision of human destiny" as well as his "melodic, haunting, and rhythmic prose." With A Thousand Miles From Nowhere , he assumes his place in the tradition of such masterful storytellers as Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy, offering to readers a tragicomic tour de force about the power of art and compassion and one man's search for faith, love, and redemption.
"John Gregory Brown is a writer I've long admired, and this new novel is his best book yet. A Thousand Miles from Nowhere is a marvelous depiction of one man's stumbling journey from despair toward a hard-won redemption."-Ron Rash
Author Notes
John Gregory Brown teaches at Sweet Briar College, where he holds the Julia Jackson Nichols Chair in English and Creative Writing. He lives in Virginia.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Brown's contemplative fourth novel dissects ideas about grief, loss, and the thin line between sanity and madness. Henry Garrett, a middle-aged former high school teacher, has fled New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, seeking refuge in a Virginia motel. Its owner, Latangi, befriends Henry, and through their conversations the reader learns that Latangi's husband, Mohit, has recently died. Mohit has left behind a vast masterwork, an epic poem that his wife asks Henry to read. Meanwhile, Henry hopes to reconcile with both his estranged wife, Amy, and his sister, Mary. Through memories and flashbacks his problematic relationships with both women are slowly revealed, along with details of his troubled upbringing. Just when Henry seems at his lowest ebb, things get even worse, but unfolding events seem to offer him a revived sense of purpose that gradually leads him back from the precipice. The author methodically conveys a sense of time and place, weaving in references to Kate Chopin's classic 19th-century novel set in New Orleans, The Awakening, and vivid descriptions of the city in the wake of the 2005 hurricane. Brown (Audubon's Watch) is an expert storyteller, and his latest only further reinforces that claim. Agent: Lisa Bankoff, ICM Partners. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Natural disaster combines with accident to make a wreckage of a life. Now, in the sympathetic hands of the long-absent Brown (Audubon's Watch, 2001, etc.), it's up to the protagonist to pick up the pieces. Henry Garrett has been on the run, headlong, for days, fleeing New Orleans and the terror of Hurricane Katrina. Now, down in the quiet shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, he rolls to an uncertain stop smack in the middle of the life of a "short, round Indian woman," her glittery fingernails disguising a badly broken heart. Latangi takes him in without hesitation, knowing only that he has been driven from a home that may no longer existand certainly not knowing that the 41-year-old was "deep down, still just a dopey adolescent kid" when it comes to matters of the heart and deeply troubled when it comes to matters of the mind. Indeed, one of the things that Henry is running from is the possibility of inherited madness ("undone," in the polite parlance of the South). But what has become of his wife and other loved ones? What is there to run toward? Henry is working on sorting all that out even as he accidentally kills an old prisoner working on a road crew, his arms raised "as if what he meant to dowas fly." Putting an already unhinged fellow under additional stress is never a recipe for happiness, but Henry struggles to work it out, finding comfort in the sometimes-eccentric but deeply hospitable people of Amherst County. Henry yearns not for having "his mind set right" but for resumption, the ability to pick up his dreams where they left off, make peace with family, and get on with life. Thanks to the resourceful, gentle Latangi, who has troubles of her own, he gets there. Populated by likable and believable characters, an affectionate, understated approach to questions of sanity, survival, and redemption. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
When Katrina strikes New Orleans, Henry Garrett gets in his car and heads north. But it isn't the storm that has caused him to lose everything wife, job, friends, home. Rather, it's his family's penchant for madness, the melancholy and despair and clatter in his head that destroyed his father and now dog him. He ends up in Virginia at the Spotlight, a roadside motel near the town where he thinks his wife, Amy, has gone. The proprietor, Latangi, lets him have a room for free because of his status as a Katrina refugee. One night, Henry strikes and kills a man with his car, but some good comes out of this accident because it connects him with the dead man's family. And Latangi turns out to be just one of a number of people who show him compassion and care. Solace also comes in the form of a manuscript Latangi gives him to read, a wondrous epic poem written by her late husband, Mohit. Brown's eloquent novel will appeal in particular to those who read for language.--Quinn, Mary Ellen Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
AT THE EXISTENTIALIST CAFÉ: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails, by Sarah Bakewell. (Other Press, $17.95.) Bakewell's history, one of the Book Review's 10 Best Books of 2016, serves as a collective biography of a half-dozen preeminent existentialist philosophers, including Heidegger, Sartre and de Beauvoir. Her lucid account has a particular focus on the political and moral crises of the 1930s and '40s that shaped her subjects' work. LITTLE NOTHING, by Marisa Silver. (Blue Rider Press, $16.) In this grown-up fairy tale, Pavla is born a dwarf, but over time shifts into a wolf girl; the man who built a torturous device to stretch her to a normal size loves her from afar in all her dysmorphic forms. As our reviewer, Matt Bell, put it, the novel "traces how memories and the stories we tell shape who we are and what we are capable of becoming." WHO KILLED THESE GIRLS?: The Unsolved Murders That Rocked a Texas Town, by Beverly Lowry. (Vintage, $8.99.) In December 1991, the bodies of four teenagers were found in the Austin, Tex., frozen-yogurt store where they worked - naked, bound, gagged and burned. Nearly 20 years later, Lowry becomes interested in the crime and recounts with a novelist's pace all the facts and unresolved questions of the case. A THOUSAND MILES FROM NOWHERE, by John Gregory Brown. (Lee Boudreaux/Back Bay/Little, Brown, $15.99.) Henry Garrett - divorced, out of a job and out of money - left New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approached, finding unexpected solace in a small Virginia town. After he becomes involved in the accidental death of a black inmate, he is stranded at the hotel where he has been staying; an unlikely friendship forged there empowers him to return home and atone for his previous misdeeds. PLAY ALL: A Bingewatcher's Notebook, by Clive James. (Yale, $13.) While fighting leukemia, James - a critic, scholar and former television critic - takes to watching, with his daughter as a companion. The resulting collection of essays, centered on notable series from "The Sopranos" to "Breaking Bad," brims with affection: for the arts, for criticism and for life itself. THE MORTIFICATIONS, by Derek Palacio. (Tim Duggan, $16.) A novel detailing a Cuban family's exodus draws on ancient Greek themes. In praising Palacio's "extraordinary" writing, our reviewer, Dinaw Mengestu, wrote: "This restlessness of Palacio's approach - roaming across physical and cultural borders, borrowing and revising as he sees fit - allows him to tread on territory most American writers are reluctant to touch."
Library Journal Review
Former high school English teacher Henry Garrett is not just fleeing Katrina-devastated New Orleans. He's running from a life he abandoned months before in a string of poor decisions. His job, home, and wife are gone. The Garrett paternal line is rife with mental illness, and Henry himself is slipping away. Days after Katrina hits, Henry finds himself at the Ganesha Motel in a small northwestern Virginia town, unsure of whether he should try to reclaim his estranged wife, who is living somewhere nearby, or seek refuge at his sister's home in Baltimore. Neither woman is likely to welcome him with open arms. A tragic accident with far-reaching implications grounds Henry at the motel as he's forced to sort out his life's purpose while confronting familial ghosts. Brown's meditative novel is steeped in melancholy musical references from many genres. This self-described "lousy hero" ultimately makes a redemptive journey that opens him to the needs, hope, and generosity of others. Verdict Masterfully crafted with descriptive prose buoyed by likable, vividly drawn supporting characters, this novel is firmly rooted in the transportive storytelling traditions of the best Southern literature (and there's reference to epic Indian love poetry, too). Worth the wait from Brown (Audubon's Watch), an author long absent from the literary scene. [See Prepub Alert, 11/30/15.]-Paula Gallagher, Baltimore Cty. P.L. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
