The Town

This book was such an enjoyable book after the last few that I have read.  It had nothing to do with the military and was about the frontier.  I do love me a good frontier book.  This book is the third in a trilogy; the other books are The Trees and The Fields.  Someday I'm going to read all of them. I really liked this book.

It is a story about the Wheeler family and their role in settling a new town.  The town originally was named Moonshine Church, but they wanted to be the county seat and so decided a new name would be better and came up with Americus, Ohio.  Mr. Wheeler was an attorney and later became a judge.  He came from a wealthy family in the East and for some reason or another (we never really find out) he had to leave his family and come West and that's where he met Sayward who became his wife.  They had 9 children:  Resolve, Guerdon, Kinzie, Huldah, Libby, Sooth, Dezia, Massey, and Chancey.  There are stories that go along with all of them.  One becomes the Governor of Ohio; another brother is accused of killing his wife's lover and has to go on the run; one daughter runs away and is found by a man across the river and lives with him for a couple of days before her mother comes and gets her; but the one that is spoken of the most is Chancey.  Chancey was born rather sickly and never really comes out of it.  Instead of running with the other children he usually is found sitting in his father's office looking out the window.  He seems to have some heart troubles and so can't be really active. 

My favorite story that they tell about Chancey is the time his father was helping a newlywed couple with some legal trouble and they were invited to sleep at the Wheeler's house.  Whenever someone was invited to sleep at their house (and this happened often) they slept in the same bed as Chancey.  Before the couple come up to bed, Chancey's older brothers tell him he needs to sleep in the middle or else the bed will flip over so Chancey plants himself in the middle of the bed.  Chancey's mother also tells the couple that Chancey has heart problems and can't be bothered while he's asleep or it could kill him.  So the couple goes up on their first night together with a little boy in the middle.  The husband keeps trying to reach over to his bride and she makes him stop because she's afraid they're going to kill the little boy.  The husband finally gets so frustrated he sleeps outside on a bench and the bride stays in the bed.  It becomes a joke that Chancey slept with the new bride.  There are other stories to do with Indians coming and taking Chancey away to raise him that frightens the boy out of his wits.

As Chancey grows up he meets a girl named Rosa.  They become very good friends.  Rosa is actually Judge Wheeler's daughter from a time when he took advantage of the school teacher.  Nobody talks about it and Rosa is banned from the Wheeler house.  Judge Wheeler doesn't even take notice of her and he doesn't do anything to help care for her.  The school teacher becomes a shut in.  She was once very beautiful but now she doesn't ever leave her house, all she does is stay inside and read.  She is married and has other children, but they live very poorly while the Wheelers live very well.  Chancey knows the secret, but Rosa never finds out.  Chancey and Rosa become very good friends and eventually fall in love with each other.  Many things are done to try and keep them separate and tragedy happens  so they cannot ever be together.  Chancey grows up to be a very bitter and hateful young man and does everything he can to ruin his relationship with his family.

Chancey moves away to Cincinnati and writes for a paper that goes against everything his family believes and even writes mean things about his brother, the Governor.  He has a secret subscriber that keeps his paper going, but then the money stops at the same time his mother starts to get very ill.  In the end of the book Chancey's paper runs out of money and he is forced to move back home to help take care of his mother.  It shares his insights into who he thinks his mother is and it's all wrong.  He then finds out that his mother is the secret subscriber and that she alone has helped run his paper for many years.  He then realizes that his views of the world are all wrong and tries to figure them out, but it's too late for him to ask his mother anything because she can't speak or hardly move.

Overall, even though there are sad parts I really enjoyed this book.  I love the writing style of Conrad Richter, it's almost poetic.  He doesn't have to give all the little details, but through dialogues you find out everything you need to know.  This was a relief after the last few books I've read.  I found this book to be an enjoyable read. It has humor and sadness and at the end of the book I felt sad that I wasn't going to be a part of the Wheeler family any more; to me that is a measure of a good book.