Augusta Locke by William Haywood Henderson
Augusta Locke: A Novel by William Haywood Henderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
For the pure pleasure of reading prose this book is at the top tier; the writing is strung through with paragraphs that are glorious, evocative of landscape, making me feel as if I am walking through a country that I actually know only barely. It would be tempting to say that the landscape overwhelms the book, but my own brief experience of Wyoming was much like that. The geography dominates everything. The countryside insists on itself in every possible way, and you live in a feeling of space that is incomparable; all this Henderson depicts in minute splendor. The novel succeeds in spite of its story but does not quite abandon story in the way that some books manage to do when they focus on language. I have changed my rating several times while typing this. I suppose it is hard to understand a character who can simply walk away from her mother, yet remain prone to reveries about her, and never make the least effort to find her again. There is the irony of the fact that Augusta’s own daughter leaves her in the same fashion. The characters are so very articulate in their spare way. The dialog in general feels composed and organized in a way that does not evoke their voices, though there are some beautiful and understated scenes throughout. The story has a monotone quality. It makes very risky choices about coincidence. The story drifts away at the ending; I’ve read so much about Gussy and still don’t know who she is; she feels like a part of the landscape, scoured by all that wind and weather. These may well all be positives, in fact. It’s a book I will have to think about for a while. But I wish the drama were a bit stronger.