Burn the Summer's Hottest Read!

 

 

Burn (2024)

By Peter Heller

Knopf, 304 pages

★★★★★

 

Few authors write about people in peril through no actions of their own as well as Peter Heller. His is the sort of world in which even those in a post-apocalyptic world are veritable innocents. In his new novel Burn Heller imagines an all too conceivable future dystopia.

 

Heller’s protagonists are two friends so close that they could be twins, the sort whose deepest secrets are somehow known to each other. Storey and Jess grew up in Putney, Vermont, though Jess, whose point of view largely narrates the novel, now lives in Colorado. Because the two are so simpatico, each year they reunite for an outdoor adventure. This time they are camping and hunting for moose in remote reaches of Maine. The woods are quiet–too quiet. And why are there no vehicles on the roads? More disturbing things emerge: human bodies, blown bridges, incinerated towns, and Black Hawk helicopters in the sky.

 

Much has been made of the so-called “disuniting” of America. What if it began to happen in earnest and you didn't get the memo? Storey and Jess find themselves in the midst of a civil war and have no way of determining who's who in the struggle. Who can you possibly trust? That much is largely predetermined because there is scarcely a living person to be found. The first one they spot is rowing furiously across a lake but is blown to smithereens by an aerial assault. So much for that possible source of information.

 

The two young men make their way northward because they've no real idea of which direction to turn. As supplies dwindle they replenish them by raiding moored boats or pilfering whatever abandoned buildings they encounter. They compensate for dying phone batteries when they chance upon a crank-operated radio. Jess was never great in his French lessons, but he retained enough that when he finds a Montreal station he decipher just enough from a news report to infer that Maine has declared independence from the United States. He also hears of terrorist activities that have killed thousands. But he still doesn't know who's attacking whom.

 

Having grown up in Vermont–Storey still lives there–the two know how to survive in the wild, but which way to a safe inhabited town so they can get back home? In some ways it doesn't matter. Things are so confused and the ruination so thorough that anyone they encountered might try to shoot them upon first sight. Their journey becomes more perilous and difficult when they come upon Collie, a five-year-old girl who wants to find her parents and wonders why her beloved dog Crystal is “asleep” and won't wake up. (See what Heller did there?) There’s a war going on, but would you just leave her there?

 

Burn is a thriller in which a single move could be the last one. In such a scenario, Jess and Storey spend a lot of time lurking in the shadows. They reminisce, muse upon their friendship, think upon the secrets they hold, and contemplate the choices they have made since they were boys. Jess recalls how he spent most of his boyhood and teenaged years living in the barn of Storey’s parents because he had trouble relating to his own. He also thinks of how his marriage is on the rocks and wonders if he has screwed up his best chance for happy life. Will these two friends and their unlikely companion survive amidst the ashes of destruction? If any of them do, will they find their better selves? Heller is too good of a writer to giftwrap such questions.

 

Burn is ultimately like a wildfire that could wipe out everything in its path, change directions, or simmer to easily contained embers. Heller excels at contrasts between nature and humankind, the poetic beauty of the first and the indiscriminate destruction of the latter. He is a gifted storyteller and is equally adroit at plotting action for maximum impact. In fact, he's so good at it, you might find yourself doing as I did, burning through the pages as if the flames would scorch me if I didn't finish quickly.

 

Rob Weir

New Britain Museum of Art II: Permanent Collection

 

 

 

New Britain Museum of American Art II

56 Lexington Avenue

New Britain, Connecticut

Permanent Collection

 

Before the NBMAA expanded, the current Landers House and several outbuildings housed its collection. It’s bigger, nicer, and more flexible now but it remains true to its original mission: American art.

 

For the most part it shows it roots. It was founded in 1903, hence its four major strengths lie in 19^th century works such as the Hudson River School, Gilded Age painters, regional artists, and American Impressionists. It has holdings that date to the Colonial era as well as some modern and contemporary works, but anything after the 1940s falls into the category of choice, but small in number.

 

Its best newer works might well be its whimsical sculptural benches that are a delight for both the eyes and weary feet. My favorite was the above bronze bear. Is it growling or grinning? I’m going with the latter, but I’m kind of partial to bears.

 

 

 

 

The NBMAA is also heavier on painting than sculpture, but I was taken by “Metamorphosis” (1960) by Dina Melicov. She twisted and deconstructed bodies and puckishly made one evoke a tooth and the other an ear. 

 

Church

 

Insofar as painting goes, Frederic Church ticked both the Hudson River and regional art boxes with his 1849 “West Rock New Haven.” Bear in mind that the Hudson River School took inspiration from transcendentalism and often opted for grandeur rather than realism. 

 

Bradford

 

 

I don’t know much about William Bradford, but “Of the Greenland Coast” (1873) is an attention-grabber. That smudge in the middle is the sun–at midnight–a tip-off this scene came from midsummer. How different is this light than that of impressionist Childe Hassam’s “The Dragon Cloud” (1903) or early modernist Rockwell Kent’s 1907 “Toilers of the Sea.” 

 

Hassam

Kent

 

 

 

Beal

 

The first part of the 20^th century saw the rise of the Ashcan school of painting that took a harder and often harsher look at American society. Ashcan painters repudiated “pretty” art in favor of street life, industrial workers, poverty, and grit. Think of the bloodied boxers of George Bellows or his famed “The Lone Tenement.” From across the room Gifford Beal could be mistaken for Bellows, though his “Elevated Columbus Avenue” (1916) isn’t as expertly executed. It does, however, capture a side of urban life in the shadows. Is that a foiled picket pocket we see on the left? It’s certainly a mixed crowd under the El. John Sloan’s “Main Street Gloucester” (1917) has the same vibe. Apparently France had its seedy side as well if we believe “Paris Street No. 2” by Everett Shinn.

 

Sloan

Shinn

 

 

Grant Wood

 

You could say a lot about Irish immigration–including its male public life and the invention of dewy-eyed exile culture–in “A Sentimental Ballad” (1942) by modernist Grant Wood. I used to show this slide to discuss how Irish women felt differently about emigration, but had no idea that the NBMAA owned it. (Far fewer Irish women shed tears for the Auld Sod!)   

 

Beaux

Du Bois

 

 

On the topic of women, Cecilia Beaux is a sadly overlooked painter, which is a bloody shame for the first woman to teach at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. As we see above, like John Singer Sargent, she did a lot of portraits for hire. I was also mesmerized by a 1939 piece from Yvonne Pene Du Bois, “Carmine Street.” It’s quite a contrast to the rubbing elbows scenes from Beal and Sloan. Her work has the loneliness of Edward Hopper, but also an edge of surrealism.

 

I could go on, but let’s just say you can spend a fascinating day hunting down your own favorites at the NBMAA. If you need a break, there’s a nice terrace for a coffee, or you can stroll across the street to a nice public park.

 

Rob Weir

Robert Parker in the 1990s

 

  

My favorite Robert B. Parker Spenser novels were those from the 1990s. By then the characters had been fleshed out and seemed like old friends. That made reading like sitting down with people you’ve known for years and catching up with the latest news. The difference, of course, is that Spenser and his inner circle got into some bizarre situations that often involved guns. Here are four I particularly like.

 

 

 

In an earlier piece I said that Senser doesn’t think he can save the world or pose as a social reformer. In Double Deuce (1992) he does the latter. More improbably, Hawk is the catalyst. Hawk maintains the exterior of an unsentimental guy, but when 15-year-old Devona and her 3-month-old daughter are gunned down because of a turf war, Hawk’s blood boils, and he makes a promise. The title references 22 Hobart Street where the murder took place. Hawk asks Spenser to help him pacify the area occupied by street gangs. For once, Hawk is on board with the idea of no shooting if it can be avoided. That’s a challenge. This is such a nasty section of black Boston that law enforcement keeps its distance. How are two guys–one of them white–going to clean it up by sitting in a car, watching, drinking coffee, and staring down threats. By Parker standards Double Deuce has less violence but is often more tense. The resolution is unlikely to become a model for community policing or urban renewal, but it’s unique and effective. 

 

 

 

Susan is the fulcrum in Walking Shadow (1994). She’s on the board of the Port City Theatre Company, a hope-over-resources avantgarde outfit in a decaying fishing town. Its reminiscent of New Bedford, but Port City is close to Boston and has a large Chinese population, so perhaps it’s a composite of Revere and someplace like Quincy. Spenser is asked by its artistic director to investigate his sense that he is being stalked. Paranoia? When an actor is shot dead on stage–which puts a damper into everyone’s evening–there’s clearly something afoot. Another tipoff is the namesake shade that disappears from where the person making it should be. Spenser is thrown in the world of tong wars, kidnapping, unrequited love, and more murders. He senses extreme danger even though Hawk and semi-reformed hood Vinnie Morris have his back. Translator Mei Ling also assists, as Spenser is out of his depth in how the Chinese underworld world works. It has a twist I did not see coming.  

 

 

 

In Thin Air (1995), Spenser is called upon to do a solid for a guy who has done many for him: Sgt. Frank Belson of the Boston Police Department. The divorced Belson hasn’t been the luckiest in love, but he seems to have the jackpot in the former Lisa St. Claire. They have been married for less than a year when Lisa disappears, and Frank asks Spenser to find her. He quickly discovers she has been kidnapped. Most Spenser novels have the man himself as the omniscient narrator, but Thin Air is also narrated by Lisa in captivity. (Her narrative is in italics in my copy of the book.) All signs point to a former partner from her days in which her life was, shall we say, less respectable than being a cop’s wife. Spenser will call upon gun-for-hire Chollo and Frank must reveal and hear things about Lisa that he’d rather not, especially events from her life in the Merrimack River town of Proctor. If that weren’t enough, Frank is hospitalized in an apparent assassination attempt. Chollo helps Spenser gain access to a Latino network, but can Chollo cool his jets and let Spenser call the metaphorical shots? This one has a fiery ending.

 

 

 

Potshot was published in 2001–the first year of the 21^st century–but I’m sneaking it into this column on the 1990s. Spenser is so associated with Boston, the North Shore, and (occasionally) New York City that it’s easy to forget that Spenser’s bio has him born and raised in Laramie, Wyoming. As in Double Douce, Spenser is akin to a Wild West sheriff. A referral from the LAPD puts Spenser in contact with Mary Lou Buckman from the desert town of Potshot, Arizona. Her husband Steve has been murdered. She insists that the deed was done The Preacher, the head of a gang holed up in an old mine in the Sawtooth Mountain foothills. Local sheriff Dean Walker is clearly not up to the task of confronting The Preacher or stop him and his associates from extorting local businesses. Spenser is offered major cash to get rid of the gang anyway he can. To that end, he recruits a gang of his own–including Hawk, Chollo, and Vinnie. Spenser reckons his seven is plenty to eliminate their 40. The problem is that Spenser doubts  that The Preacher killed Steve, Mary Lou is on the level, or that restoring civic pride is what his contract is all about.

 

Rob Weir