Early Morning Riser: Love and Weirdness in Small Town USA

 

 

Early Morning Riser (2023)

By Katherine Heiny

Borzoi Books, 317 pages

★★★★

 

Early Morning Riser is touching, funny, and occasionally tart. Author Katharine Heiny reminds readers that relationships only need to make sense to those in them. There’s a backdoor shout out to advice columnist Ann Landers (1918-2002) whose favorite instruction to busybodies was “MYOB.” That’s “mind your own business” for the text abbreviation crowd.

 

Jane Wilkes is a 26-year-old second-grade teacher who has recently moved to Boyne City, a real place of around 4,000 people in northern Michigan. Several actual places, including the ice cream/candy store Kilwins factor into the story. Heiny’s Boyne City is a friendly place, but also one prone to gossip and to nosy parkers who give advice whether you want it or not. Locals think Jane is a wonderful teacher, but they try to warn her off of 42-year-old local carpenter Duncan Ryfield. Much of the population love Duncan or, more accurately, has loved him. He’s a free-spirited cowboy/Lothario type who, aside from a dissolved marriage to the realtor Aggie, has had brief flings with most of the single women in the town and adjoining region. When Jane starts to fall for him, the locals as well as Jane’s bossy mother Phyllis, (metaphorically) line up to take bets on how long she will last. 

 

The weird part is that most of Duncan’s ex-lovers think he’s a great guy who is resourceful and treats women with respect. That includes Aggie, who Jane suspects still carries a torch for Duncan. But she’s now married to Gary, a State Farm agent and a seriously odd guy that we suspect isn’t all there. Among Duncan’s good deeds is throwing work to Jimmy Jellico, a seemingly mentally challenged guy very reminiscent of Rub in Richard Russo’s North Bath, New York  novels. Jimmy’s favorite lines–which he repeats ad nauseam–are “How about that? Isn’t that something?” Like Rub, Jimmy has a very unusual relationship. He is besotted with Raylene, who works at Kilwins, and is either pretty or ugly as sin, depending on who you ask. She’s twice divorced, lives in a trailer park, is decidedly lower class, and seems to have a boyfriend. Duncan figures this is nobody’s business and goes out of his way to involve Jimmy in socializing. Jane easily falls in line with that.

 

We quickly catch on that eccentricity rules in Boyne City. Some of the local color includes a mandolin player, a lush who falls in love late in life, an almost wedding, and some other relationships that make those of Jane, Aggie, Duncan, and Gary seem almost normal. A tragedy and a scam will throw Duncan, Jane, and Jimmy into an intentional family. Jane will even become a mother. The crisis about that is that Duncan has to wrack his brain to come up with a girl’s name that isn’t that of any woman he once dated!

 

As you can see, Early Riser is an unconventional novel. One of its finest virtues is that it calls into question the very definition of convention. It has many screamingly funny tidbits, not the least of which are Jane’s career day classes in which she invites guests to share what their work entails. I shall say only that some of it is certainly not what you’d expect second graders to hear! Taco Tuesdays are another sometimes bizarre occasion. On a more serious note, Jimmy is officially “dull normal.” That’s a term that’s still used, despite the fact that it’s an oxymoron that’s roughly as clear as a murder of crows at midnight.

 

Comedian Lenny Bruce once said, “I hate small towns because once you’ve seen the cannon in the park there’s nothing else to do.” I guess Lenny never visited Boyne City. He would have found a lot of surreal material for his act in the small towns abutting Lake Michigan.

 

Rob Weir