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The genre of "coming of age" novels has been filled with gems and duds, and I'm glad to say William Weld's latest, STILLWATER, falls into the former category. Weld takes us back to 1938, to the Swift River Valley of western Massachusetts. The lives of the folks living in the five towns of the valley will be altered dramatically in the name of progress, their homes and farms doomed to lie under a vast expanse of water, due to a damming project designed to create a massive reservoir. Historically, such public works projects have always pitted those who promote the work against those who question the necessity of it. And generally, the promoters win the arguments while the questioners are silenced.
STILLWATER is told through the eyes of a 15-year-old boy named Jamieson Kooby during his last year in the valley. Jamieson lives with his Grandmother, a strong willed independent thinker, on a farm surrounded by nature's beauty. Weld's descriptions of Jamieson's excursions through the flora and fauna of his world are remarkable for their simplicity and poignancy. His ability to tie, almost imperceptibly, emotions and scenery into a well crafted, fully realized portrait of "real life" is nothing short of masterful.
Jamieson introduces us to a group of friends and foes, all of whom are alternately tangled up in the politics and the trivialities of everyday life. There is Hannah, a young orphan who lives at the Poor Farm, who possesses an ability to recall past lives and who soon becomes Jamieson's closest companion. Much of Hannah's world revolves around the emotion of dead lovers who still haunt the earth. Her voice is one of wisdom bound up in a young girl soon to become a woman. Hannah offers continuity to the tale and allows Jamieson vibrant but silent visions of a world.
Hammy the Hobo, living with Walden-style deliberateness, is a hero to Jamieson and his friends. He alone dares to "question" the good of surrendering the town's land to the reservoir project during the Governor's speech to the people. The price Hammy pays for questioning the Governor lends the story a poignant climax.
As flooding day approaches, the reader can almost feel the water flowing through the locks and a chapter of the characters' lives coming to a close. Interestingly, with the loud rush of water comes the silence of things lost, never to be regained. Upon flooding, Jamieson becomes a man, moves on, and comes home to memories.
William Weld's STILLWATER is a masterpiece, a book with such scope and depth that it draws immediate comparisons to Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and John Knowles's A SEPARATE PEACE. I would not be at all surprised to see this title on school reading lists in the near future. For now, I can only hope that we readers spread the word about this wonderful coming-of-age story.
--- Reviewed by Tony Parker
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