I visited an old friend recently – John Gardner’s Nickel Mountain. I’ve been growing old waiting for the Gardner revival (the deceased literary novelist not likely to be confused with the living spy novelist John Gardner, although it bears mentioning), and was pleased to see October Light come back into print – a brilliant meta-novel fit to hold its own among the Lethems and Franzens and Safran Foers of today. Okay publishers: now it is time to reprint Nickel Mountain: A Pastoral Novel, a more subdued, realistic turn from the protean Gardner, and one of my favorite books of all time. Hell, it should be granted American Classic status by Modern Library or Everyman. (Gardner burned brightly indeed – it is astonishing to think that this novel was published in the same year as his Jason and Medeia – a classical verse epic set in a contemporary frame, and another fave of mine). Henry Soames runs the Stop-Off diner in the Catskills, on the dark edge of mortality. Morbidly obese, Soames has already had one heart attack and is just one heartbeat away from the void, which - combined with the stark isolation and treacherous indifference of the twisting mountain road and its hairpin car wreck deaths - has him thinking about what it all adds up to. Soames’s meditations and dialogs with the cynical George Loomis are wonderfully rich and thought provoking, as his conscience struggles with the transience, weaknesses and follies of himself and others, and the absurdity of existence. (Gardner is one of the few writers that really warrant pulling out a word like ‘existence,’ and yet he is very accessible, for all that). One other major note in Gardner’s rich polyphony is Soames’s relationship with young, vulnerable, pregnant waitress Callie, (wasn’t it fitting that the young saleslady at the used bookstore where I went to get a fresh reading copy was disarmingly beautiful in that unstudied, Lena Grove sort of way?), but that speaks for itself, as does the rest of the book, which deserves to be read and re-read, and will certainly please fans of Richard Russo, E. Annie Proulx, and just good meaty writers in general.
The plot is almost non-existent, and the characters failed to sustain my interest until the very end---in the interior monologues of George Loomis and William Freund---but by then it was too late. The relationship between Henry Soames and his teenage bride is never fully explored, even though the first half of the book is preoccupied almost exclusively with these two characters. The novel is set in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York which is one of the most scenic places in the eastern United States, and yet the author somehow manages to make the setting seem as drab as his characters' lives. Every now and then the morbidly obese 'hero' goes out of his home to shoot small animals such as rabbits and squirrels with a high-powered rifle. Whether he does this for food, sport, or simply to compensate for his own inadequacies, is never made clear, but it does nothing to make the character more interesting or more sympathetic. Having said that, the author's impeccable prose shines through it all, and there are many beautifully written passages within the novel.
What do You think about Nickel Mountain (1973)?
Believing that a novel should speak for itself, I usually recommend skipping introductions, however the William H. Gass introduction to Nickel Mountain is such a perfect gateway to both the book and its creator that I’d like to give it an additional five stars, for a total of ten. In a mere ten pages Gass has made me feel like I personally knew John Gardner and better understand the rather dogmatic times he had to create in. Gass writes of Gardner: He caused to rise up like an enveloping vision a fictional world that would help us live better in the real one. Having read Nickel Mountain, I agree. This novel, black and dark as a Faulkner in the Catskills, has a kind of beautiful optimism to it. In fact if Faulkner had the kind of loving understanding of the human heart that a writer like William Maxwell did, then the result might have been something like this. The backwoods characters embody many ugly traits and many terrible things happen but Gardner floats above his creation like a gentle and forgiving God, casting honor and meaning on people I would never have otherwise thought twice about. I think this one of the great American novels. Having visited this fictional world I feel better able to live in the real one.
—Tyler Jones
Henry Soames--the morbidly obese owner of a truckstop diner in the Catskills, an angelic but tragically inarticulate soul--proposes marriage to his pregnant, teen waitress when the girl's boyfriend leaves town. Gardner was a medievalist and philosopher at heart, and this story represents perhaps his most successful blending of those passions with his high ideals about the modern novel. Must love always evolve into a decision--or could the decision, and a grotesque pairing, ever reverse that dynamic?
—Adam
The language of Nickel Mountain by John Gardner is absolutely beautiful, but if you're looking for a book with a plot, skip this one. Obese, middle aged Henry Soames is content in his life running a diner in the Catskills until he hires 17 year old Callie to help him. Callie is in a doomed affair and winds up pregnant. Henry marries her. I have seen Nickel Mountain touted as a love story, but I don't see much love in it, except perhaps for the love both Henry and Callie have for the child. Henry offers Callie security, but she offers no love in return. Some interesting accidents happen in the story, but there is no follow up. Some interesting characters are introduced, but they fade away as I'm sure this book will from my memory.
—Tracie
