This is the opening scene in the opening chapter of ABLE COUNTY, which is set in 1923. The situation is that a very young Duke Lambert (one of four main characters in the novel and the person I'm considering the novel's main protagonist) has stolen his father's new car with his friend Morty Strickland in the hopes of driving up Jasper Mountain, which is where, since Reconstruction, the county's population of freed slaves and their descendants have lived. This is a little more than 500 words but doesn't feature a whole lot of dialogue, so I'll post another excerpt after that (from the same chapter) that does. 

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They were stuck for sure. They had fishtailed the new Model T into the muddy ditch beside the road and now stomping the gas did nothing but spin tires. Duke Lambert sighed and slid back far enough in the seat that his feet no longer reached the pedals. Morty Strickland, red-faced, stepped from behind the rear fender. Mud covered his tan knickers from waist to cuff.

“What’re we gonna do?” Morty said. “It ain’t moving.”

Ahead, the road narrowed to the width of a cart track. A line of ankle-high weeds sprouted down the middle. The ground here was marshy, a bog, the stunted, mossy trees skeletal and eerie through the tendrils of mist that rose into the still-cool morning air. There were stories of ghosts in these woods, Confederate soldiers shot trying to escape their service and now doomed to wander forever as payment for their treacherous cowardice. Duke shuddered despite himself.

“There’s skid marks for thirty feet at least,” Morty said. “The hell’d you do that for?”

“You think I wanted to?” Duke jumped from the car and eyed the skid marks, twin gouges carved into earth still wet from last night’s rain. All for a damn fox. It had appeared out of nowhere and he had been driving too fast. He should have run it over.

Morty plucked at his pants. “These are new. My ma’s going to kill me.”

“This car’s new,” Duke said. “What do you think my dad’s going to do?”

Morty thrust his hands into his pockets. It was not his style to say I told you so, even when he had the right. But he would piss and moan with worry for the rest of the day. That much was a guarantee.

Duke turned slowly, taking in the trees, the ditch, the bog, the road. What had he been thinking, taking the car? He knew he could drive it, had already steered it in more than a dozen circles around the apple tree in front of the house. He had been bored, that was all. He had been bored since sunrise, since the moment Morty’s father, due for a day’s business in Washington, D.C., had dropped off Morty for a visit at the Farm. Duke had grown bored of playing soldier; Morty made a terrible Kraut. He had grown bored of throwing the ball. He had even grown bored of trying to guess which girl in their class would have the biggest chest next year. Margie VanDorn, I bet, Duke said. You can already seem ‘em, a little. Morty had skipped a pebble into the yard. Better not let Pete hear you say that. Irritated, Duke cast his eyes across the long southern flank of their property, past the old oak tree and the long, meandering line of Able Run, out over the rolling expanse of their north pasture. Beyond that, vaster still, lay the VanDorn farm, almost twice his family’s holdings. And still further beyond that, as far north as he could see from the porch, rose Jasper Mountain, a lush green mound jutting from the earth. The words had escaped his mouth before he even knew he would speak them: Let’s drive up that. Morty had protested, of course, but that had not mattered.

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What follows is a scene from near the end of the chapter. With the car stuck in a ditch, Duke and Morty manage to hitch a ride (on a mule cart) to the county seat of Fairton where they meet Duke's father, Joe Lambert, at his office in the county bank that he owns. Duke lies to his father, saying that some of the hired hands, Black men, stole the car and drove off. What Duke wasn't expecting was that his father assembles a posse of men in town who drive out with the intent of retrieving his car, and encounter Earl Freeman, one of the mountain's residents, who's hooked it up to a horse team and is pulling it back to the Lambert farm. Duke's father assumes he's caught the thieves red-handed. 

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Joe Lambert cut the engine. “What the hell is going on here?” The sheriff followed him out of the car.

“Duke, what’s happening?” Panic edged Morty’s voice. Duke ignored him and fumbled with the door. “Are they going to kill him?”

Duke stumbled from the car and pushed through the men to where he could see. The old Negro remained on his knees. He spoke to Joe Lambert in a quavering voice. “Please, sir. The car was in the ditch over yonder. You’ll see the skid marks. Me and my boys found it and got it out. I was bringing it back to you.”

“The car was in the ditch.” Duke recognized the flat monotone of his father’s voice. It meant he suspected lies.

“Yes, sir, the ditch. I swear it.”

“And you were bringing it back.”

“Yes sir. I…”

Ed Mills stepped from the crowd. He pressed his rifle’s barrel against the old Negro’s cheek. “You quit your lying.” 

“I ain’t lying. I swear before Jesus. I was bringing Mr. Lambert’s car back.“

“Yeah? How you know it’s his car?” It looked like Ed Mills might strike the old Negro with the butt of his rifle, but Joe Lambert’s voice stopped him. “Hold on now, Ed. Step back.” After Ed Mills had complied, Joe Lambert looked at the sheriff. “If he moves, shoot him.”

“Yup.” The sheriff raised his rifle and sighted down the barrel. Joe Lambert stepped closer to the old Negro, then yanked at the legs of his trousers and squatted low.

“Look at me,” Joe Lambert said.

Slowly, like a beaten dog, the old Negro raised his head.

“You’re Earl Freeman.”

Earl Freeman nodded.

“Why’d you take my car, Earl?”

“It’s what I said, sir. It was stuck in the ditch. Me and my boys got it out. I was bringing it back to you. As a…” His voice trailed away.

“As a what?”

“As a gesture. That there ain’t no hard feelings. Ain’t nobody unhappy. With the…” His terrified eyes scanned the fidgeting crowd of men. “With the arrangements.”

“Let me get this straight, Earl. You and your boys, who conveniently aren’t around, just happened to find my car stuck in a ditch at the bottom of your mountain. And you recognized it was my car and so out of the goodness of your heart decided to use your horse here to pull it out. And then, to be nice, you were going to drag it all the way back to my farm for me. Is that about it? Is that what I’m supposed to believe?”

“It’s the truth, sir.”

“Well, then, how about you explain to me how my car made it all the way out to a ditch at the bottom of your mountain in the first place? It can’t drive itself. You know that, right? That it can’t drive itself?”

 

“I know that, sir.”

“I’ll tell you what happened here, Earl. Some fool decided to do something very stupid. Maybe that fool’s you and maybe it isn’t. Maybe you’re even the one who talked some sense into his fool head. But that still means you’re an accomplice, and even more it means you know who that fool is. So what I want now is a name. Either admit you’re the one who took my car or you tell me who did. Or I swear by all that’s holy you’ll be decorating one of these trees.”

Duke could not move. He felt as though his feet had been spiked to the earth, and if at that moment one of Jasper Mountain’s Confederate ghosts had come wailing from the trees to take his soul, he would have been able to do nothing more than watch it happen. Standing there, staring, he realized that Earl Freeman’s gaze had shifted. No longer was he looking at Duke’s father. He was looking at Duke. In that gaze, Duke saw not only blind terror, but some other expression as well. It took him a moment to understand what it was: A desperate plea.

Story Statement

There are four main characters in this novel, which is set in Able County, a fictional place in Virginia. They are: Duke Lambert (who is the central figure), Jake Schaefer, Lester Noonan III, and Squirrel. However, of these four, only the latter three could probably be considered “protagonists.” Duke Lambert, as the figure who lords over and to some degree controls the destinies of the other three, should probably more safely be considered the novel’s main “antagonist,” although that’s not necessarily how I think of him. But for the purposes of this assignment, I will deal with him in the second section. As for the other three:

Jake Schaefer: The young vice-president of Able County Bank. Although he doesn’t entirely understand it at the novel’s beginning, his main objective is to learn who he truly is. And, more importantly, to come to terms with what it means.

Lester Noonan III: The third Lester Noonan to serve as sheriff of Able County, “Junior’s” primary objective is to live up to the image he has of his father and grandfather. And, more importantly, to emerge from the place under Duke Lambert’s thumb where he has lived most of his adult life.

Squirrel: Has been trapped in a life forced upon him for almost 30 years, a life that’s so far cost him his wife, his daughter, and his grandson. And while it takes him most of the book to understand it, his only real objective is to escape.

Antagonist

It's probably accurate to call Duke Lambert the main antagonist in the novel, although I think he’s even more accurately defined as an anti-hero in that he is also one of the main (if not the main) narrative characters in the book and someone for whom I would hope readers, at least at some points, find themselves cheering. But he is also unmistakably the force that drives all three of the other characters forward toward unknown and perhaps even unwanted (at least initially) fates, and his deeply ingrained narcissism and craving for power are enormous forces that for decades have controlled all those who find themselves in his orbit. While capable of kindness and compassion, his default state is one of deep cynicism and profound mistrust, and over the years—as the county he has for so long dominated through his wealth and sheer force of will has slowly evolved into something new and unfamiliar to him—he has grown increasingly angry and disconnected. He is the product of a time that no longer exists, the son of a deeply cruel man in whose shadow he still sometimes walks, and he thinks little of the consequences of his own actions. In fact, in the end, it is his own actions that prove his undoing.

Title

This book has always been, at least in my head, entitled ABLE COUNTY. It’s been that for so long now that it’s difficult to even imagine it being called something else, although I’ve always been the sort of writer who’s willing to put anything and everything on the table when it comes to rewrites and revisions. This is a story where the place—a very rural county in very rural Virginia that, over the course of Duke’s long life, has slowly transitioned, and is still transitioning, into something more urban, more developed, more open to outsiders and tourists and others unfamiliar with its long, secret histories—is every bit as important as the people. At least, that is my intention. Because of that, a title that establishes the story in the place where it occurs has always made perfect sense to me.

Genre and Comparables

When I think of comps for ABLE COUNTY, what comes to mind are novels that feature complex characters navigating a setting/place that is every bit as complex, vibrant, and evolving as they are. I also think of novels where the history of that place is a deep well, a history built on the same fiction that the novel itself is built on but grounded in enough real history to bring an element of what could be called historical fiction into the mix. When I was an undergraduate, I had the opportunity to study creative writing under a guest writer at my college, David Bradley, whose book THE CHANEYSVILLE INCIDENT had been required reading in our Modern American Literature class. That book, which features a protagonist (John Washington) who returns home to care for his father’s dying friend and gets swept up in trying to solve an old, local mystery about 13 runaway slaves who were shot and buried instead of being returned to their owners, was certainly an inspiration for my own and features many of the same themes—a hero (Jake Schaefer) who doesn’t truly understand his own connection to historical events, deep-rooted racial tensions, and a rich, vibrant setting that has firm roots in real history. John Casey’s SPARTINA (and to a lesser degree its follow-up, COMPASS ROSE) is another novel that that firmly roots itself in a historical place that to a large degree influences and even controls the actions of the characters inhabiting it. Much more broadly, Peter Mathiessen’s SHADOW COUNTRY and Allen Wier’s TEHANO are big, sprawling, epic stories with full galleries of vibrant, complex characters navigating richly built fictional worlds rooted firmly in the past of the real world in which we all live.

Hook Line

The difficulty in this exercise is that I could have a hook line for each one of the primary characters in the book. Below is one that I think would work for Duke (and, since he’s the novel’s main anti-hero/antagonist, probably for the book itself).

The iron-fisted but aging patriarch of a rural Virginia county, a man who has spent a lifetime amassing and protecting terrible secrets as he strives to be the powerful leader he remembers his father being, must now find a way to deal with those secrets’ slow, steady unraveling as the very world he built for himself over decades inexorably changes around him.

Other Matters of Conflict

I’ve dealt with Duke quite a bit so far so will shift to another character, Lester (Les) Noonan III, for this activity. First, though, to better understand how these four main characters inter-relate, it’s important to understand the novel’s overall structure. It actually opens in 1923, when Duke is a 12-year-old boy. That first chapter tells the story of the day he and his friend, Morty Strickland, stole Duke’s father’s new car and tried to drive it up Jasper Mountain, a lone mountain at the center of the county that since Reconstruction has been home to most of the county’s Black population. Their attempt does not go well. Following that chapter, we get present-day (1994) chapters that feature, in turn, Squirrel, Lester, and Jake. Each one of them represents a different generation—Squirrel is Duke’s age, Lester is one generation younger, and Jake is a young man of almost 30. The novel continues in this fashion—one Duke-centered chapter set in the past, followed by three present-day chapters each centered on one of the others—until past and present merge at the book’s end.

Lester Noonan III is the last Lester Noonan in a line of Sheriff Lester Noonans that stretches back to the early 1900s. His grandfather, Lester Noonan, served essentially as muscle for Joe Lambert, Duke’s father, a man who not only founded the county’s only bank but also built a large (and largely secret) moonshining enterprise after the onset of Prohibition. His father, Lester Noonan II, was one of Duke’s best friends growing up and, as sheriff himself, became the same sort of right hand to Duke that his own father had been to Joe. But while Les still serves Duke in a similar capacity to that of his own father, the connection between them is not the same. Deep down, Les knows that Duke sees him as little more than a child, so much so that Duke only ever refers to him as “Junior.” This, then, is Les’ “great wound,” the inner conflict that has haunted him for decades and simultaneously informs and taints his every interaction with Duke. The slow simmer of this internal fire is further fueled by the fact that Les knows a great secret his own father had been keeping on Duke’s behalf, one that he believes caused his father’s untimely death from a heart attack.

While there are numerous secondary conflicts that could be mentioned for Les (an ongoing struggle with what might be full-blown alcoholism, an ongoing connection with his ex-wife, powerful friends of Duke’s who constantly want favors), the real secondary conflict in the novel comes in the form of Brad Cotton, a newly hired deputy in his department. Les learns early in the novel that, for a variety of reasons, Brad has become motivated to run against him as sheriff in the upcoming election. As someone who’s always run unopposed in the past, this throws Les’ entire universe into turmoil.

Setting

As I’ve said in other assignments, Able County—a fictional, rural county in Virginia that’s been undergoing a long, inexorable transition toward being more exurban or even suburban—is in many ways the fifth main character in the book. The south county is primarily farm and grazeland, the area where Duke Lambert’s family farm has been an institution for over 100 years, although McMansions and other estates have begun to surround it. Jasper Mountain, a lone mountain at the center of the county that for decades after reconstruction was the home to most of Able County’s Black population, is another centerpiece. Fairton, the county’s seat, is where many of the book’s chapters are centered and includes the Able County Bank, which has long been the source of Duke’s family’s power, as well as the sheriff’s department where Les spends much of his time. The north county, which was once a hub for timber production and orchards, has become a tourist destination known mainly for its many wineries. Rather than go into additional descriptions of these and other locations, I’m including here an excerpt from one of the book’s earlier Duke chapters. In this, a 13-year-old Duke Lambert has finally achieved what has been a goal of his for many years—to reach the top of Jasper Mountain, a place he is not supposed to go, in cooperation with his lifelong friend Norm Schaefer and Squirrel, whom they meet on their ascent and who agrees to guide them the rest of the way. I chose this scene not only because it happens relatively early in the book, but also because of how it lays out the county as a whole for the very first time to young Duke.

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“How many uncles you got up here?” Duke said.

Squirrel shrugged. “Lots. It true you almost got Uncle Earl lynched?”

“Nobody got lynched. They let him go when I told what happened.”

“I heard you lied first and they almost lynched him.”

“But then I told the truth. That’s what matters.”

“Momma says a lie’s a lie.”

“Not if you tell the truth about it.”

Further up the track on their right, the earth fell away into a round hollow. A narrow footpath with a handrail made from tree branches descended to a small stone church built inside it. Beside the church was a small graveyard with no headstones, only flat rocks laid in even rows. Overhead, a neatly painted sign hung from a tree limb: J.M. Baptist Church.

All of it so familiar and yet so different, too, the scenes like watery reflections of the world Duke had always known. These people, he now understood in a way he had not before, lived here. They cooked supper, hoed gardens, raised children, washed clothes, played among the trees. They lived here, and they had been living here every single time he had ever gazed upon this mountain from his bedroom window. They had been invisible to him, but they had been here all the same. He felt mighty with that knowledge for a moment, and then he felt small.

They followed the track a while longer before Squirrel veered into the trees. Now they moved more slowly, picking their way through undergrowth, clambering over logs, circling frequent outcrops of rock. A herd of deer scattered before them, bounding into the trees, their white tails flashing. Above them, through the trees, Duke pointed at a clean line where the rising earth ended at sky. “That’s it up there, ain’t it?”

“That’s it,” Squirrel said.

And then they were there. The peak was a massive stone crown that rose high above the encircling trees. Squirrel led them to the far side, where the slope to the top was less steep. Duke led the way, first on his feet, then on hands and feet, then, finally, on hands and knees. Finally at the top, winded, his heart pounding in his chest, he stood up and turned in a slow circle to survey the earth spread below. West lay the Maccamaw, a seemingly endless undulation of forest that from this height seemed billowy and soft, a vast cottony bed. South lay the rolling expanse of the VanDorn farm that he and Norm had crossed, the Lambert farm beyond it. There was his house, a tiny white speck tucked neatly into one of the Run’s lazy s-curves. His unknowing father inside. To the east lay more farmland, the county’s fertile lowlands, a rumpled quilt of green and brown squares. Bisecting it like a dark ribbon, the slim line of Fairton Road. Duke’s eye followed it north to the dense huddle of Fairton itself, no more than a sprawl of tiny dollhouses floating in an ocean of trees. There in the center, the bank’s dome gleaming in the sun. Beyond the town rose the North County, rippling upward ridge after ridge, endless rolling foothills that all finally merged with the gauzy blue peaks that lined the horizon.

Norm was at his side, breathing hard. “My God. Duke, you ever seen the like?”

Then Squirrel was there, too. “What’s down there?”

Duke shut his eyes as a long gust of wind traced his face. He answered: “Everything.”