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Summary
Summary
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Author Notes
Howard Frank Mosher was born in Kingston, New York on June 2, 1942. He received a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University and a master's degree from the University of Vermont. He taught high school English in a region in rural Vermont called the Northeast Kingdom. He wrote several books about the area including North Country: A Personal Journey, God's Kingdom, and Points North. Many of his books were adapted into films including Where the Rivers Flow, A Stranger in the Kingdom, Disappearances, and Northern Borders. He died from lung cancer on January 29, 2017 at the age of 74.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
YAReading this novel is like turning the pages of a family album with its glimpses of friends and relatives. Austen Kittredge carries readers on a quick, sentimental journey back to his growing-up years with his grandparents from 1948-1960. Not warm and fuzzy, they are determined, hard-working, no-nonsense types who adore Austen in their quiet, stern way. Life is primitive in this rural area of Vermont that borders Canadait snows in May, there's no electricity, and an uneducated schoolmistress who keeps ``good order'' runs the one-room schoolhouse. When Austen turns 18, he and his 72-year-old grandfather explore and map parts of Labrador. The narrator paints a brilliant picture of the territory's beauty and mystique as well as its treachery. This book will appeal even to reluctant readers, and especially to those who enjoyed Olive Anne Burns's Cold Sassy Tree (Ticknor & Fields, 1984). Although few YAs can identify with Austen's lifestyle, they will share his fascination with the strange melange called family.Linda Diane Townsend, West Potomac High School, Fairfax County, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
This haunting, unforgettable novel of rural northern Vermont in the '40s and '50s was a New England Booksellers Association award winner. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Mosher (A Stranger in the Kingdom, 1989, etc.) is on familiar territory in his nostalgic fifth novel of life in northern Vermont's Kingdom County, as told by a man remembering his boyhood on the farm of his beloved grandparents. In 1948 six-year-old Austen Kittredge III leaves his widowed father to live with his paternal grandparents on their farm in the township of Lost Nation. They are fiercely independent characters who maintain an uneasy truce in their 40-year marriage: When the domestic strife becomes too much, Grandmother Abiah escapes to her sitting-room filled with treasured Egyptian artifacts, while Grandfather Austen retreats to his hunting lodge up in the mountains. Young Austen loves them both, but it is his cantankerous, aloof grandfather who comes to dominate his world, and their relationship is at the center of the book. The adult Austen III narrates the dramas and vicissitudes of rural life as set pieces; each chapter stands strongly on its own, and taken together they form a mosaic of farm life. A particularly moving story tells of gun-shy Grandmother Abiah shooting a snow owl that has been eating her hens; an amusing one depicts Uncle Rob Roy unwisely making a bet with a professional sharpshooter. Escapades at the county fair, doings at the annual family reunion and Shakespeare performance, conflicts at the one-room schoolhouse are all recounted lovingly. After Abiah's death Austen and his grandfather take a life-altering trip to the wilds of Canada; on a lonely mountaintop Austen learns his reticent grandfather's 50- year-old secret. A gentle, meandering story, rich in the details of country life without being unduly sentimental, despite the occasionally overdone rural eccentricities. (Author tour)
Library Journal Review
Near the end of this wonderful book, an FBI agent declares, "I don't understand this place at all." The poor, confused soul was referring to Lost Nation Hollow, an area of Vermont near the Canadian border that is so remote that electricity did not arrive there until the mid-1950s. In 1948, six-year-old Austen Kittredge comes to the hollow, sent by his widowed father to live with his obstreperous grandparents. As Austen grows to manhood, he begins to understand the constant, often hilarious battles of will between them. The young man also becomes a confidant to both adults as they summon Austen into their secret worlds-his grandmother's "Egypt" room and his grandfather's map-filled hunting cabin, known as "Labrador." This thoughtful coming-of-age tale by the author of A Stranger in the Kingdom (LJ 9/1/89) contains memorable characters, excellent writing, and even a little wisdom. Buy wherever good fiction is read.-A.J. Wright, Univ. of Alabama, Birmingham (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Introduction: A Lesser Oregon | p. 1 |
| 1 The Farm in Lost Nation | p. 5 |
| 2 Hannibal Rex | p. 49 |
| 3 The Snow Owl | p. 79 |
| 4 The Green Mountain Whale | p. 95 |
| 5 Down the Coat | p. 126 |
| 6 Upland Game | p. 158 |
| 7 Lost Nation Calendar | p. 173 |
| 8 Family Reunion | p. 194 |
| 9 The Season of the Cluster Flies | p. 229 |
| 10 Northern Borders | p. 261 |