Loom of the Land

Ruthless, indestructible as the Ridge that sheers above his house, Russ Walls can’t even write a letter “without putting the whole weight of his fist behind it.”  Here’s the story of that fist – of its hold over his family and his town – and of his children’s revolt, one by one, against his tyranny … a revolt as exciting and desperate as an melodrama.

    Russ’ three eldest children are like him – powerful and stubborn.  But none is his match alone.  Gene tries to escape his yoke through his marriage, Mary through her painting, Jake through his one love – the farm.  Stanny is younger, puny and wildly sensitive.  His father’s scorn terrifies and fascinates him.  But he has his grandfather, and Nat, for support, and Nat is a man of wit and feeling.  Only with his wife has Russ no conflict.  Right or wrong she loves him and takes his side against her own children.

    There is tragedy here – and storm.  But ironically, even as you see Russ break and corrupt the people who oppose him, you find yourself sufficiently corrupted to like him, too.  He is a glutto for life; he asks no quarter of man or God.  Opposition is the blare of a trumpet to his ears; fear and defeat are for other men.  He isn’t fighting the good fight, but he is pitted against lesser men, built to less heroic scale.

 

Eleanor Mayo has painted an unerring and brilliantly colored portrait of a strong man.  Like his neighbors you fear and respect him; like his family you love him – and want to rend him limb from limb.  There’s writing power and a surging vitality behind this book.  The surpassing beauty of the sea and land in Maine...