Set in present-day Massachusetts, Hinterland is stark and poetic, with far more beneath the surface than the words indicate. It is the third book I’ve read by L.M. Brown, and as in her others, melancholy runs like a ribbon through the pages as does (it seems strange to say this of a book filled with words) silence. The characters populating the story are blunt and taciturn to a fault, even with loved ones—so silent that what dialogue there is resonates. There’s a paucity of visible emotion, but underlying loneliness, rage, love, grief, depression. The desire to escape conflicts with the desire to remain. These are small folks, with small, ordinary lives, befuddled by life’s circumstances. Hinterland is a slow-burn novel, replete with atmosphere.
Nicholas spent years in jail for beating up a fellow student and leaving him with brain damage—a violence Nicholas learned from his father. When Nicholas is released from prison, he gets a woman (Kathleen) pregnant and, while he doesn’t marry her, refuses to abandon his child. The mother’s schizophrenia slowly reveals itself as she hallucinates, her moods swing, and she loses contact with reality. When her daughter is five years old, Kathleen does an unthinkable, evil act. After that, she disappears, and Nicholas is left to raise his daughter alone—with the help of his next-door neighbor, Ina. The daughter, Kate, is shattered when her mother vanishes, and her personality changes from being a shy but likable youngster to being a wayward young woman.
The book does a great job showing the difficulties of living with a schizophrenic and the constant need to anticipate the schizophrenic’s mood. It is filled with mystery of a type that will weigh on your heart rather than slap you in the face. The plot twists are interesting, with the major one happening in the second half of the book. The characters ring true to life, if marked by ambiguity, and the prose, as in all of Brown’s works, delightful.
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