'Cottage Street' by Carlin Blahnik; watercolor
Ann Petry's second novel is a departure from The Street, her blazingly successful debut set in Harlem, while Country Place takes place immediately after World War II in a small town at the point where the Connecticut River empties into Long Island Sound. It's narrated largely by George Fraser, Lennox's pharmacist, from his vantage point in his rather old-fashioned store on Main Street. Called 'Doc' or 'Pop' by most in town, he's an older gentleman who keeps his own counsel and as he readily acknowledges, isn't overly fond of those of the female sex with a few exceptions.
It is only fitting and proper that I should openly admit to having a prejudice against women—perhaps I should say a prejudice against the female of any species, human or animal; and yet, like most of the people who admit to being prejudiced, I am not consistent, for I own a female cat, named Banana.
Two other females he thinks highly of are Mrs. Gramby, a widowed matriarch of Lennox who lives with her son Mearns and his wife Lillian in an imposing house of mellow brick, and Mrs. Roane, the mother of Johnnie, a young man on his way home from the war. The atmosphere early on is one of a quiet, sleepy place where they know each other's lives almost as well as their own. Autumn is coming on and the influx of city summer visitors has left when Johnnie Roane swings off the train and steps into the town's one taxi driven by The Weasel.
Johnnie has been waiting for this moment, to drink in the details of the place he left four years ago and see if it's what he carried in his mind, but with his sly smile The Weasel talks and asks questions, and Johnnie's homecoming is not at all what he has imagined so vividly.
He had planned to look at every last detail, the trees, the houses, the streets; twisting and turning his head so that he could see down the little side roads, so he could swallow the whole place up.
For the first time he realizes that nothing remains unchanged and the eyes seeing it are not quite the same as they were at an earlier time. He also starts to remember what he doesn't like about the town, the self-satisfaction and the insular smugness along with the gossip. The first slivers of unease start to appear helped along by The Weasel and his smile. Johnnie's relieved to reach his parents' house where his wife Glory has been living, letting their own little house to another couple while he's away. Married for a year before the war, she is the daughter of Lillian Gramby and works at Perkins' general store. The reunion with Glory was what Johnnie was longing for most of all when he imagined returning home.
She had run up the back steps; her footsteps light, quick. When she entered the kitchen, she brought a rush of sweet, cold air in with her; and it seemed to him that the early fall dusk was wrapped about her enveloping her with a soft, mysterious glow that shimmered deep down in her eyes and clung to the edges of her hair.
Over in Gramby House Lillian is viewed as an unwanted interloper by Mrs. Gramby and the three people who work for her, Neola, Portulacca (called The Portegee by the locals), and Cook. For her part Lil is impatiently awaiting and imagining the day when Mrs. Gramby's various ailments will finally carry her off and she is mistress of the house.
The Weasel is the town's most assiduous gossip, but he not only spreads it, he especially delights in provoking situations that lead to more of it. He has the knack of sniffing out possible scandal and making the situation worse through insinuation and exaggeration. And that is what happens when he interferes in the lives of the Roanes and the Grambys.
On the night of Johnnie's return a heavy autumn rain begins and over a period of hours it ramps up into a storm of epic proportions that has the entire town feeling unsettled. It also brings several uneasy situations to a head.
I could feel a waiting quality, a tenseness running through the town. It seemed to me that the beat of the rain against the windows, the ever-increasing force of the wind, had set all of us to a reluctant examination of our lives; set us to thinking about the things we had wanted and never got; set us to weighing and balancing our desires against our achievements.
The obvious device of the storm steadily increasing to a terrifying intensity while something similar happens in the lives of the characters ends up being more effective on the page than it sounds. This book doesn't come up to the high standard set by The Street, but does have its own strengths. To begin with there is the setting of Lennox, a small town that is primarily Anglo-Saxon and Protestant, prejudice is rift towards Irish, Catholics, Jews, Blacks, and foreigners. Young men are returning after the war and are expecting to slip back into life as they have always known it, but for women who have spread their wings just a little, the idea of going back to their former life might not be so appealing.
There are wonderful characters here: the slimy and poisonous taxi driver who lives for acquiring and spreading gossip by whatever means he can, but has a hidden secret of his own; Lillian, a mean, avaricious woman who married Mearns Gramby to have the life she has always felt she should have, but still doesn't and is desperate to get it; Johnnie, who is torn between resuming his life in Lennox with Glory and his dreams of studying art in New York City; and Doc Fraser, the pharmacist who has a very good idea of exactly what is going on in the town and has a softer heart than he admits to.
Mrs. Gramby is a particularly interesting character, an older woman who suffers from diabetes and arthritis and is very fond of food, especially sweets. She's the wealthiest person in town, doesn't share the town's prejudices, and tends to think the best of people, except for Lillian and her daughter. As the storm hits, Mrs. Gramby is sitting in her living room feeling regrets over past decisions which she now thinks has led to an intolerable situation in her own home. But the storm brings changes to her life, and through her, to the lives of others in Lennox.
Ann Petry addresses the town's prejudices in a different way in this book. The characters whose stories are at the forefront are all white, but characters at the margins such as the quiet lawyer David Rosenberg, the knowledgeable and talented gardener Portulacca, devoted Neola, and Cook, who knows an evil person when he sees one, may not have much page time, but their impact on what happens is outsize.
When the storm blows itself out to sea, its aftermath is a path of destruction through the town leaving downed trees, ripped out fences, damaged houses, and uprooted lives. The ending is on the melodramatic side, but there is a sense that change is coming to the town, perhaps slowly, but on its way.
(Country Place was originally published in 1947, and appeared in between The Street and The Narrows.)
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