Tawny

By Chas Carner

REVIEW: by Barbara Wersba of the New York Times.

The odd thing about TAWNY is that while it reminds me of every wild animal story I have ever read, and while it also reminds me of certain television programs I try to avoid, it is still a beautiful and breathtaking book. Something in the author’s apprehension of life has saved him from triteness in this story. Something very personal has redeemed it.

The plot concerns a New England farm boy named Trey, whose twin brother has recently been shot and killed while trying to protect a herd of deer from poachers. While mourning his brother, Trey is suddenly presented with a doe that has been so badly mangled by dogs that it has little chance to live. He nurses the yearling back to health and finds that as it takes a new hold on life, so does he. Predictably, the boy and the deer begin to heal together.

The book moves forward swiftly. As scenes of Trey’s present life are contrasted with scenes of his past, the ubiquitous twin brother moves through the story in a kind of golden light -- always braver and more beautiful than Trey, always more daring. But as the deer takes a stronger grip on the boy’s heart, the image of his brother begins to fade. Trey’s new problem will be to allow the yearling to return to the wilderness, and the battle he fights with himself on this issue is a passionate one.

Throughout the story we are given scenes in which Trey rescues the deer from danger and scenes in which the deer saves Trey. But every time a familiar Hollywood scenario threatens to engulf us, the author’s language saves him and we are transported by the magic of words. Rarely has the atmosphere of a New Hampshire farm been so palpably evoked.

TAWNY is a book that is moving and true. It is written with love, and its language is beautiful. There is nothing more to say --except that I cried at the end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chas Carner
• Release date: Apr 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311994967

Book preview

TAWNY

By Chas Carner

Copyright 1978 Chas Carner

Smashwords Edition Copyright 2014 CarnerCo

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part II

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part III

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Experience the audiobook

About the Author

Other titles by Chas Carner

Introduction

I am pleased to present this e-book version of TAWNY, a novel first published in hardcover by Macmillan nearly 40 years ago. It’s a timeless and ageless story, about a kid going through difficult times. It takes place on a farm in New Hampshire, in the late-1950s, as I remember it.

TAWNY is a story about love, loss and letting go.

I was 24 when I started the manuscript. Recently uprooted from a New England hill town and transplanted to a New York City apartment building, I was unsettled and homesick for my rural childhood. I was compelled to return there, and to revisit some painful moments, even my father’s death at that time.

Write what you know, is an author’s motto. Write as therapy, became my mantra. So, I harkened back to the period, place and people where it all happened. I began a process of writing, grieving and healing that carried me through to the last word on the last page.

The book is also a bittersweet love letter to the town of Pelham, NH. The settings are accurate to the time. The incidents are gleaned from personal experience. The same is true of the characters; each comprises certain aspects of real people. I even preserved the names of some special ones.

To my surprise, the book was a critical and commercial success: a Library of Congress-selected/Kirkus Review-starred/New York Times Best Book of 1978. It was even published in Europe. My career changed.

So did my life. Instead of sitting alone most of the time, silently pecking at a page in my typewriter, I attended bookstore readings, classroom visits and library lectures. Instead of writing a couple of letters per week to my family and friends, I read and answered dozens at a time, to people in places I’d never seen. Decades’ worth of correspondences and conversations - among parents, children and teachers - created some life-long friendships.

Today, many of TAWNY’s original readers are old enough to have children, even grandchildren, of their own. Over the years, we’ve shared a bond among us, fostered by a handful of little truths sprinkled throughout the pages of this book. It is my hope that more and more new readers find their truths in it, as well.

I’m in my 60s nowadays, a husband and father. And I am grateful that this novel - long-disappeared from shelves in stores/libraries/homes - is now given new life in this new form. I hope it gives meaning in your life.

Thank you, Refna Wilkin, my first and best editor. Thank you, Mel Berger, my first and best agent. Thank you, Elise Link, for producing the e-dition of TAWNY. Thank you, Rebecca Tuttle and Daryl Pinsdorf for creating the audiobook version. Thank you, Mary Holland, for the photograph gracing their covers. And thank you, Cynthia Round and Carner Round, for loving me, and for listening to my stories.

TAWNY is dedicated to those who endure great loss, and still hold great love in their hearts.

Chas Carner

NYC, NY

2014

Part I

Chapter 1

The small pond down the hill from the farmhouse had started freezing over during the long November nights. Every morning, right after their chores, the twin boys would race over the gray-frozen field to check the ice’s thickness before the afternoon sun would begin to melt it away. Watch. I’m going to throw this rock high into the air and see if it breaks through, Troy would say. Don’t, his brother would answer. The rock will freeze into the ice and spoil the skating. So the two boys waited restlessly until even the sun was cold and the ice grew thicker and thicker.

But that was months ago. Now, the pond was covered with a heavy, black ice that groaned and settled into itself, shooting deep cracks across its surface and sounding like a big applewood log being split for the fire.

The boy glided over the glassy plane, silently studying the etchings his skate blades left behind. Sometimes, he would stop and study an oak leaf set deep into the clear ice. He remembered a photograph he had seen in school of an insect, millions of years old, trapped in amber-colored resin.

It had been a different kind of winter. Only a light dusting of snow had fallen so far, and the harsh, dry winds had blown it around like powder. The nights and mornings had been so cold that the snow collected in the frozen tire ruts felt like cornstarch under his work boots. The winds sifted the snow through the brown-brittle blades of grass in the fields, hissing as it pelted the dried leaves and windswept hay. It was a bad year for the animals, his father had said. Grampa used to call these ‘bald winters.’ They freeze the ground and everything on it without a protective covering of snow.

The boy thought of these things as he circled the pond once more. Yes, it had been a very different year.

Trey Landry, it’s time for supper and I won’t call you again. His mother’s voice floated over the barren field from the kitchen door. He knew he still had a few minutes left. As the sun settled behind the pines on the hill he skated toward the edge of the ice where his boots waited stiffly. He sat on the ice close by and raised his skate-booted foot high. Pik. The back of his skate blade shattered the smooth surface and scattered ice chips around him. Pik-pik. The blade sunk deeper, the crater getting wider and wider. Pik-pik-pik. Harder and harder he chopped at the ice. Again and again he struck until, finally, the blade punched through and the bowl-shaped dent filled silently with water. He watched for a moment, then, crouching close, pushed his face toward the near-freezing water and drank, burning his lips and throat and stinging the tip of his nose.

Didn’t you hear me call you? his mother asked as soon as the back door slammed shut behind him.

Yes, ma’am, he answered, leaving his skates in the mud room and pulling his frozen mittens from his cold-stiffened hands. He squinted from the glaring light in the kitchen.

I called you three times, his mother returned, not turning away from the stove where pots steamed and simmered. Hang up your hat and coat and sit right down here at the table. You can wash your hands at the kitchen sink. The warm water hurt his hands, but he did not complain. He was more worried about not letting the big bar of soap slip onto the floor.

Your father’s late, too. He thinks the new Holstein’s going to have that calf any minute. He’d like you to help him if it comes tonight.

The boy ate his supper quietly alone. An empty chair stared back at him from across the table. After he had finished eating, the boy carried his plate to the sink. Through the frosted window he could see his father approaching the back door.

Looks like my guess was right. I’ve moved Ida into the calving pen, his father said, stamping his feet just inside the door.

Do you want me to call Freddy Coombs and see if he can come over and help out? his mother asked.

Not right yet. Trey and I might be able to handle it ourselves. What do you say, doctor? Are you ready to deliver another baby? he asked his son.

Yes, sir, Trey answered, drying his hands on the faded dishtowel and hurrying to pull on his hat and coat.

Don’t forget your mittens, his mother warned, pulling the boy’s cap down over his ears. I’ll have some nice hot cocoa ready for you when you get back.

Trey and his father leaned into the wind as they made their way toward the barn.

We’ll probably have to help Ida this time, son. She’s new at this sort of thing and she’ll be pretty scared. I’ll need you to keep her calm. Just talk to her, tell her what’s happening. You know more about calving than she does.

Ida’s bellowings could be heard through the night’s wind. Trey ran ahead and struggled to drag open the heavy, sliding barn door.

It was warmer inside the unheated barn, mostly because there was no wind. Or, maybe it was just a different kind of coldness: heavier and quieter. The air always seemed thicker inside the barn, filled with the rich, sticky-sweet smells of hay dust, silage, grain and manure. Trey worried about the newborn calf’s coming into such a frigid world. Winter births were always the hardest.

His father moved ahead, past the fifty other black and white cows rattling their stanchions and calmly chewing. They watched him walk by. Trey touched each of the animals’ noses as he passed. One or two