The
Marble Orchard
Paul
Johnson
Reviewed by Janelle
Martin
After
decades spent living a bohemian lifestyle spanning four continents,
painter
Carl Larson has finally returned to his hometown of Jamestown, New York.
Expecting to spend only a few weeks there while he settles his
widowed
mother into a nursing home, he is unexpectedly caught by the ghosts of
his past
and a new artistic direction. Caught
unaware by the force of his own memories, Carl is immobilized long
enough for
external forces to pin him in one place.
Now facing the shadow of his eleven year-old self, and the
events that
led to his migratory lifestyle, Carl must confront the town and choices
he’s
spent a lifetime trying to escape.
Narrated
alternately from the viewpoints of eleven year-old and fifty-three
year-old
Carl Larson, The Marble Orchard is both a story of
self-knowledge and a
ghost story. Paul Johnson explores the
impact the ghosts of the past have on both memory and the present.
Carl is
back in a place he worked to avoid and has returned hoping to quickly
clean up
his mother’s affairs and escape back to the world beyond Jamestown, New York.
However, Carl has underestimated the power of his past to
ensnare him –
and the possibility that what he is running from isn’t Jamestown and his family, but rather
self-scrutiny and awareness. As Johnson
explains in an interview
with the Las Vegas Optic on July 28, 2006: “the place you grew up is always
full of ghosts if you go back.” The
Marble Orchard is a cautionary tale of what can happen when one
chances
that return, and the gifts that can result.
In fact, The
Marble Orchard is brimming with Johnson’s personal ghosts. In the same article with the Optic,
Johnson goes on to explain that The Marble Orchard is “built
around something that
happened when I was 11.” One of
the
transformational moments in Carl Larson’s life is pulled directly from
Johnson’s own childhood; a serious accident landed him in an
overcrowded
hospital and in a ward with men dying of gangrene.
Because his own accident happened one month
after the introduction of penicillin, his own leg was saved.
The
man Johnson met there was the basis for the character of Carl
Soderstrom. “He told marvelous stories. It
gave me the
notion of this great wide world out there. I couldn't wait to get out
and
experience it. He had a great influence on me.”
While
it is unclear what ghosts Johnson is exorcising with The Marble
Orchard,
he maneuvers his plot and avoids the pitfalls, which can befall
semi-autobiographical novels. Johnson
keeps his plot tightly focused and does not let the tone of The
Marble
Orchard fall into pathos and regrets, focusing instead on hope and
redemption.
It
is in the small details of everyday life that Johnson shows he is a
consummate
observer of humanity. Whether it is
house-proud Lorraine, demanding sufficient praise of her home, or Carl
tripping
over moldering carpets, Johnson includes minute details in his novel,
creating
verisimilitude for readers, engaging them more deeply in his tale.