Interior monologues in upstate New York

Richard Russo’s trilogy of books set in North Bath, upstate New York, follows the familiar themes of many of his novels: absent fathers, resentful sons, and resulting trauma that continues from generation to generation. His Empire Falls was set in a similar mileu, but was less focused on the absent fathers, and deservedly won a Pulitzer. But many readers will rank the North Bath trilogy as favourites, showcasing as they do so many of Russo’s strengths.

Foremost among those is the ability to get into a characters head. His characters live on the edges of economic stability, running small diners that barely make a profit, or working in construction through the brutal NY winters. They can be morose and cynical, seeing little chance of improvement in their daily lives, yet also cheerfully practical. Occasionally one character is ambitious, planning a resort or theme park near the freeway that will bring untold millions to Bath, but usually the realities of life in Bath put paid to any such ambitions

For a while the [proposed] fun park had gotten people’s hopes up, but when they were dashed the collective despair was so profound that the town had even stopped stringing the buoyantly optimistic Main Street banners that had become its dubious trademark, the last of which had read: THINGS ARE LOOKING IN BATH.

Each novel includes all the same residents of North Bath, along with a few new ones, but each novel focuses mainly on a different character. The central figure through the books is Donald Sullivan, known to one and all as Sully, who is the typically infuriating father figure of Russo’s books. He is an unreliable father to Peter, despised ex-husband to Vera, lover of the married Ruth, unreliable but constant friend to Rub and Carl and Mrs Peeples. Unreliability is his middle name, but at the same time, his daily patterns are completely predictable: that he will be getting coffee at the diner at 7 am, doing hard physical labour during the day with Rub, and on a barstool in the evening.

By the second book, Somebody’s Fool, Sully’s son Peter has returned to North Bath, having been denied tenure at a university, and Peter has his own deteriorating marriage and three sons to deal with. One son, Will, lives with Peter, and is a nervous child who forms an unexpected bond with Sully. The other two sons are with the ex-wife, and they are out of Peter’s life and thoughts. The reader can watch Peter almost inevitably repeating Sully’s parenting mistakes.

The final novel in the trilogy, Everybody’s Fool, seems at first to be entirely about Chief of Police Douglas Raymer, his hyper-capable black secretary Cherise, and her cool twin brother Jerome.

Jerome’s cherry-red Mustang convertible pulled up and stopped on a dime, tires screeching, chassis rocking. […] Rolling down the window, he said, as he always did, absolutely deadpan, “The name is Bond. Jerome Bond.” Part of the joke was that his and Charice’s last name was actually Bond.

Soon enough, though, Sully, Rub and Peter enter the story, but Raymer is an interesting enough character and has his own complex backstory to hold the reader’s attention. In some ways this is the most satisfying book, as it opens the possibility of breaking the cycle of generational trauma that extends through Sully’s descendants.

The charm of the books comes from Russo’s extensive explorations of the inner monologues of the characters. Some are very quick off the verbal mark — Sully is never at a loss for words, and often several verbal steps ahead of his friends — while others like Rub are virtually inarticulate, but they all have a continuous cycle of thoughts running in their heads to which the reader is exposed.

[Rub] He hated it when Sully went silent. It was bad enough when what he sad was untrue or unfair, but silence was even worse, because to Rub that meant he’d lost interest or didn’t think what Rub was trying to explain merited any response.

Russo’s women characters are an interesting lot. Some are viewed from the point of view of the male characters: his ex-wife Vera, for example, is shown from Sully’s perspective with a mixture of bafflement and annoyance. Others are tough and capable, such as Ruth, the proprietor of the diner who has had a long-term and well-known affair with Sully, and these characters tend to have their own thoughts.

Though he claimed to have no interest in cooking, Ruth had never seen a man more comfortable in a kitchen. He seemed to intuit its rhythms, to know when she’d need to sidle by him in the confined space between the grill and counter, whereas her husband both at home and in the restaurant, always managed to be standing in front of whatever door [..] she needed to open. [Sully]’d had similar instincts in bed, which had been nice.

There is a rhythm to blue-collar life in North Bath that is beautifully captured in the books.

“You know where he is?” he asked.

Jocko consulted his watch. “Six-thirty? Well, if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say he’s right where he always is this time of day. In fact I bet I could guess which stool.”

Russo has sympathy or at least an understanding of his characters. Even the ones who are trying to rip off the poverty-line residents of North Bath, such as Carl Roebuck, are portrayed with an amused but clear-eyed tolerance rather than outrage.

For all the empathy for his characters, Russo doesn’t seem to extend that to animals. Every book in the trilogy contains a dog who suffers from some miserable condition, which is played for laughs. In the first book, a Doberman is knocked out with a handful of sleeping pills — “the dog began to palsy and froth at the mouth” — and is never normal again. In the last one, Sully’s adopted dog has an infection that causes him to chew on his penis, until it is bright red and bloody, but the concept of a vet visit never seems to occur to Sully or any of his friends. Is this the reality of life in blue-collar upstate NY, i.e. no one cares for their pets and finds their miseries amusing? Hard to say, but it made me cringe.

Lovely reads (except for the dog parts).