The Hounds of Spring

In the “The Jolly Corner,” a short story by Henry James, a man, returning home to New York after decades living abroad, feels that he is being watched by a ghostly presence and gradually realizes that it is the ghost of his own self, the person he might have become had he made different choices. Every life has many forks in the road, thousands every day, but a few stand out from the rest, tidal waves as opposed to mere heavy surf.   In  The Hounds of Spring  took a particular “what if” from my own life that I knew would so compel me that I wouldn’t quit until I found out “what happened.” And let me tell you, no one could have been more surprised than me by what I found out!  (You can find "The Jolly Corner" in Eight Tales from the Major Phase  by Henry James and it may well be available for free on line somewhere too.) The painting above is by Peter Milton, inspired by, you guessed it! The Jolly Corner!

Lately I’ve been thinking about the way we weave little narratives around everything we do in life as well as in fiction.   The Hounds of Spring  opens with Poppy letting the dog out then eating her breakfast.  During revisions I fretted that this was too dull.  At my first public reading the other day I was still fretting, I mean, who cares that Poppy eats yogurt and blueberries for breakfast?   Poppy cares and it's her story.  Breakfast and the way she starts her day was also the "way into" the story.  How we approach breakfast most likely is, in microcosm, how we tackle life.  We love telling people in great detail about what we eat for breakfast; it matters to us, so it should matter to the reader as well, no?   Most of the time our lives are banal, happily banal, I might add.   So it occurs to me that starting with breakfast and introducing Poppy as a contemplative person gives the reader an indication, early on, ...

That was the first reading and it went pretty well.   The turn out for our tiny village was immense!  Thirty or so people, which I suppose includes the three of us in our family and David and his wife Lindsey. I had counted twenty-five, which is exactly right if you subtract us.  I introduced David and he charmed his audience reading from The Faulkes Chronicles  -- told collectively by the children whose mother is dying of cancer.  Of course, there is sadness, but there is also an inordinate amount of joy as the family do all they can to make their mother's last days happy and comfortable ones.  So then it was my turn and I was introduced by my former fellow library trustee and dear friend, Pam Kellogg.  I read from the beginning of the book to page something-or-other because try as I might I haven't figured out what shorter passages I can read from here and there.  I also panicked and decided that I must have forgotten my reading g...