God's Kingdom (25 page)

ALSO BY
HOWARD FRANK MOSHER

The Great Northern Express

Walking to Gatlinburg

On Kingdom Mountain

Waiting for Teddy Williams

The True Account

The Fall of the Year

North Country

Northern Borders

A Stranger in the Kingdom

Marie Blythe

Where the Rivers Flow North

Disappearances

 

Advance Praise for
God's Kingdom

“This is American fiction at its very best, a rip-roaring story full of hilarity and heartbreak. I finished it feeling better about myself and life in general.
God's Kingdom
is the good stuff, the very best stuff, honest and emotionally resonant. Don't miss it.”

—Stephen King

“It's impossible to read
God's Kingdom
without thinking of Mark Twain on every page, because in this lovely, moving book
Howard Frank Mosher
strikes that same Manichaean balance between deep misgivings about the “damned human race” and equally profound affection for individual men and women. Over the years Mosher's beloved Vermont “Kingdom” has become one of America's most magical literary places.”

—Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of
Empire Falls

“With
God's Kingdom
,
Howard Frank Mosher
has delivered a powerful and striking tale of family and place and of how deeply intertwined the two can be—a sense of a vanishing America but truly a rural America that is familiar in tone if not detail to us all. Mosher's keen wit and gentle sense of the absurdity of life is fully present but also a telling examination of the secrets that bind and can also splinter a family. The ghosts of history, alongside a landscape that appears to nurture, while in fact being careless of our existence, run side by side throughout the novel and in the end, we are left with the pause of beauty, the moment of grace, the relentless swelling of hope. A rare achievement in contemporary American letters.”

—Jeffrey Lent, author of
In the Fall

“
Howard Frank Mosher
is an American treasure in the long or short form, or any hybrid between. And guess what: he keeps getting better.”

—Tom Franklin, author of
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

“We are just plain lucky that
Howard Frank Mosher
has written so deeply and in the end invented Vermont, this version, so far north that the border runs through it; and he is able in this rich coming-of-age story to invoke the humane spirit of Sherwood Anderson, who had his own kingdom in Winesburg. This love letter to the North Country brims with the profound natural world and peels back layers of the personal mysteries imbedded in its history.
God's Kingdom
held me to the last page.”

—Ron Carlson, author of
Return to Oakpine

“This irresistible novel should bring
Howard Frank Mosher
the big audience his work deserves. Reading
God's Kingdom
is like listening to a masterful storyteller around the fire. There's a man named Moose with a pet moose, an inspiring mute, a brilliant former slave, a basketball phenom named Crazy, a Pulitzer-winning curmudgeon, and a spinster who sees the future. These bighearted stories build artfully upon each other. And along the way, Mosher invents—and often kills—more unforgettable characters in one sprawling family in one slender novel than most writers create in a lifetime. His quirky imagined world is tinged with whimsy and magic yet utterly convincing, as if these pages sprang from the soil of northern Vermont.”

—Jim Lynch, author of
The Highest Tide
and
Truth Like the Sun

“
God's Kingdom
is a pleasure and a surprise. It has everything one would expect from a Howard Mosher novel and a lot more, too. It is fun to read, and is filled with adventures, beguiling characters, the presence of the natural world and its beauties; but it is also compelling evidence that Howard Mosher has really just begun. This, I think, is his best book, but that is only because it is his most recent. If you have not read Mosher, the loss is yours. If you have, more pleasure is on the way.”

—Craig Nova, author of
The Good Son

“In
God's Kingdom
Mosher brings us the coming of age of a young writer; along the way we see the kingdom as Jimmy sees it, its harshness, as well as its glory, and through the good, the bad, and the ugly is the triumph of the human spirit and the benediction of the landscape upon that spirit.
God's Kingdom
is one of those fictions that leave the reader uplifted without sacrificing truth, realism, or style.”

—Ernest Hebert, author of the Darby Chronicles

“In
God's Kingdom
,
Howard Frank Mosher
again displays the qualities that make him the nonpareil chronicler of a vanishing upcountry New England. The author's deep knowledge of, and affection for, his landscape and its denizens resonates in every sentence of this bright new novel. Mosher's work is regional, yes, but only in the sense that Robert Frost's was: his deep contemplation of local matters provides a lens through which he and his lucky reader can more keenly know what it is to be human.”

—Sydney Lea, Poet Laureate of Vermont and author of
A North Country Life

“
Howard Frank Mosher
's stunning new novel,
God's Kingdom
, begins as a coming-of-age story, and ends up an epic work of genius. Not since Hemingway's Nick Adams has there been a character so expertly and lovingly written as Jim Kinneson. For decades in his indispensable novels,
Howard Frank Mosher
has refracted Vermont's Northeast Kingdom into historical precincts of stark reality, composed hardscrabble human music, drawn landscapes seemingly seanced up from before the Age of Reason, and played out Fate like slowly building storms in his character's hearts. He is the rarest thing in literature: an original. Vermont is Mr. Mosher's literary kingdom and he rules it with a bittersweet pen pressed hard to the page.”

—Howard Norman, author of
Next Life Might Be Kinder

“Few writers plumb the cords that link fathers and sons with the hope—and humor—of
Howard Frank Mosher
. He is wistful and wise, and his moral compass is as precise as his immense skills as a storyteller. I cherish my visits to the mythical Kingdom County that once upon a time was Vermont.”

—Chris Bohjalian, author of
The Sandcastle Girls
and
Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

 

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

1. Blooded

2. White Knights

3. The Ballad of Gaëtan Dubois

4. Haunted

5. Rivals

6. Only in the Kingdom

7. False Spring

8. Territory but Little Known

9. The Scout

10. Memorial Day

11. Senior Year

12. God's Kingdom

Genealogy Chart

About the Author

Also by Howard Frank Mosher

Advance Praise for
God's Kingdom

Copyright

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

GOD
'
S KINGDOM.
Copyright © 2015 by Howard Frank Mosher. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Chapter 2, “White Knights” was originally published in
Hunger Mountain Review
, in 2013, in a somewhat different format.

Cover designed by Young Lim

Cover photographs: mountains by Chris Archinet / Getty Images; men by Robin Skoldborg / Getty Images

Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, ext. 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-1-250-06948-1 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4668-8200-3 (e-book)

eISBN 9781466882003

First Edition: October 2015