Mohawk

Mohawk

Richard Russo (Vintage, 1986)

        My November piece on the essays of Richard Russo brought me around to his novels, of which Mohawk is the first. It's set in Mohawk, New York, somewhere north of Albany, like the Gloversville of Russo's youth. In 1967, it's a town where not much is happening, though the tanneries and glove shops are still in operation. Mohawk is full of men who drink all night and lose at poker. In the morning, they show up at the Mohawk Grill, where Harry pours coffee and keeps an eye on the village idiot.

       Anne Grouse shares an apartment with her son, Randall, upstairs from her parents' flat. Anne's father is dying of the emphysema he contracted from a lifetime working with leather; her mother is content only in the company of her older sister, with whom she shares many a pleasant afternoon complaining about their respective daughters, and imagining that they had always been close. (Mather Grouse is always given his full name, while Mrs. Grouse is always Mrs. Grouse.)

      Anne's cousin, Diana, takes care of her mother and her husband, Dan, who uses a wheelchair. Dan and Anne have the misfortune to be enamored of each other, beginning just after it was too late to do anything about it. They each married the person they were supposed to marry, but the suppressed sentiment lingers powerfully.

      Anne's ex-husband, Dallas Younger, is a man of spectacular unreliability, and the archetypal male Russo character. Dallas is not good at much, besides losing things and letting people down. "Dallas, always careening about town, out of control, always landing on his feet, always vaguely wondering about the sound of screeching tires and crashing metal wherever he went, never suspecting a causal connection."

       The town ages as the characters do; we see it again in 1972, after the destruction of the moribund old hospital, and the arrival of marijuana and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Randall has gone off to college, only to drop out and come home a draft dodger. Anne's father has died, and she's given up hope of moving away for a better job. Dallas has left the garage and started working for a bookie. All of the seams are showing.

       Not only does Russo make us care about these people and their dead-end days, he shows us that they wouldn't care if we care or not. They're living their own lives, that's all; the men playing the numbers, and the women waiting to be loved, or even heard. Randall takes up with a local girl whose lack of curiosity he finds oddly refreshing. "He had attempted, just once, to explain to her the nature of ethical dilemmas, but gave up once he realized her own daily life had little to do with choice and probably never would."

       Russo respects his characters, and loves their town. The comic effects he achieves by knowing them better than they know themselves can be sharp, but they're tender. It's a God-like point of view that gives one hope for what God is like. 

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April 1 2020