Carolyn Chute’s 3rd novel, `Merry Men,’ a tour de force

MERRY MEN, by Carolyn Chute, Harcourt Brace & Co., 695 pages, $24.95.

In many ways, Carolyn Chute’s third novel, “Merry Men,” is a surprise — the first being the length of the book — 695 pages!! — the second being a clear but subtle shift in the writing itself, which has acquired a discreet sophistication that makes this book even more lyrical than her earlier offerings.

“Merry Men” takes us back to the town of Egypt, Maine, and reintroduces us to familiar characters such as Reuben and Earlene Bean and Lucien Letourneau. We meet a host of new folk — among them Lloyd Barrington, the pseudo-Robin Hood of the book’s title; Gwen and Phoebe Curry, daughter and wife of the town’s recently deceased doctor; the biker David Turnbull; Forest Johnson Jr., who runs a thriving backhoe business; and spunky Anneka DiBias, who marries a man she barely knows — and we delve into some brief historical episodes in the past of this fictitious Maine town that Chute has given flesh and bone and breath.

This novel is painted on a much broader canvas than “The Beans of Egypt, Maine” and “Letourneau’s Used Auto Parks”; we are given a bird’s-eye view of a cross-section of Egypt society, from those struggling in poverty to the upper middle class. But the focus is, as always, on what Chute calls “working class folk,” and its theme is that of reverence for life — all life. In all her work, Chute shows us detailed portraits of lives of grace and beauty and honor, in a world many people forget exists, but one we all should know.

Chute’s unfailing perception of the minutest details is so easy to overlook. Of Forest Johnson Jr. she speaks of “this dark sovereignty of eyes,” of a young woman, “cigarette fingers of mustard gold,” and of Lloyd Barrington’s nephews: “All skin that shows is burned to the color of lions.”

The book revolves around the life of Lloyd Barrington, beginning with his stint as “Super Tree-Man” at age 8 3/4. Barrington is a dreamer who hopes to do good deeds; he goes to college but returns to Egypt seemingly unchanged (except for his long hair, which creates estrangement from his father). It is the untimely loss of his wife and children that provides the motivation for his later Robin Hood-like work, taking from the rich to aid those in need.

But “Merry Men” is far more than this; it is also a passionately political book. Chute’s concern for the environment pits Forest Johnson Jr.’s work against that of so-called progress. He works on a knoll that “has much rock from the ice age. And the following ages of earth unmovable, earth for all time. Rock. Face of God. With the easy clasp of the backhoe, the face of God is pulled away.” Later she refers to “This good thing. This intercourse of robotized commotion, noise, and fuss. This progress.”

She also has a great deal to say about government, both state and national: “… the legal-aid program in Maine is nearly busted … the whole state government here is nearly busted.” And later rages, “How much can they go on doing in the name of good business sense and free enterprise? Put us in camps …? Experiment on us? Bury us in piles?”

A great deal is said, with great fervor, about hunting and trapping, legal and illegal: “Is it sicko of me to believe other animals besides HUMANE ONES have feelings?!! To believe that when they are tortured, they hurt?!” Reference is made to the Karen Wood case, although it is not named. “I wonder how much food those poor suckers took from their kids’ mouths in order to pay the organizations a little more to see this corpse get blamed for being in her own yard, being outside, being near trees, being DEAD!!!!!!” Much of the book’s energy entails the right to hunt vs. the right to live on land that might be hunted.

“Merry Men” is a deeply personal book rampant with raw emotion. The most wrenching scenes revolve around Anneka DeBias Plummer when, three weeks overdue in her pregnancy, a long, tortured labor begins, but does not meet the criteria the local clinic deems worthy of action. Anneka is desperate and angry and frustrated: “… they act like … like I’m nuts. I felt pretty foolish. It’s not worth it.” Anneka’s experience mlrrors the author’s when, before publication of “The Beans of Egypt, Maine,” bureaucratic bungling resulted in the death of the baby she and husband Michael named Reuben, and to whom “The Beans” was dedicated.

On a lighter note, David Turnbull’s dog, King (a 21-pound Schnoodle) bears a striking resemblance to Chute’s late, much-beloved Toto, whose penchant for T-shirts and repertoire of amusing antics endeared him to virtually everyone who met him. And the skull-and-crossbones sign on Forest Johnson Jr.’s door is the same sign (with a sllght change in wording) that Chute kept hanging on her study door, and which was immortalized on the front of custom-made T-shirts during the Stonecoast Writers’ Conference in Gorham back in the summer of 1985.

There are a few problems with the book — Granadas didn’t exist in the late 1960s (they were an early 1970s car), the book would have benefited from some judicious paring of the text, and sometimes a topic gets overdone (the hunting question in particular) — nonetheless, this book realizes the talent and promise shown in Chute’s earlier novels; reading it we know that we are faced by a writer of stunning power, insight and caring.

“Merry Men” is without question a veritable tour de force. It is a book that must be read, and one that cannot — must not — be ignored.

Janet C. Beaulieu lives in Bangor.