Winter Run - Hardcover

Ashcom, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 156512328X ISBN 13: 9781565123281

Publisher: A Shannon Ravenel Book, 2002

Synopsis

There are certain special—and rare— books that refresh our understanding of how children see the world. This is one of those books. It's the story of a boy growing up in a lost time in an idyllic place—rural Virginia of the late 1940s.

Charlie Lewis is the only child of city people who, after the war, choose to live at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains on a "gentleman's farm" near Charlottesville. Six years old when his family settles in the renovated corn crib on old Professor Jame's place, Charlie grows up in his personal version of heaven. His innocence is, of course, lost in the process. And so is his version of heaven.

But, as the old saying goes, still waters run deep, and Charlie runs deep, with a natural (almost supernatural) affinity for the land and its animals. For knowledge , he instinctively turns to a group of older black men, some of whom work the farm, others who are neighbors. Jim Crow laws and "the curse left on the land by slavery"—as old Professor James puts it—are still very much in evidence. Even so, Charlie's passions endear him to these men. They understand that he is lonely even if he does not. They watch out for him. And more—they love him.

Winter Run is a story that lets us escape for a moment our own noisy and complicated contemporary lives. Like The Red Pony, like Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, it takes us back to the joys of childhood's unrestricted enthusiasm and curiosity.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Ashcom was raised in Albemarle County, Virginia. A graduate of Brown University, he has taught school, bred and raised thoroughbred horses, and served as a master of hounds and huntsman to the Tryon Hounds in Tryon, North Carolina. He is the author of Lost Hound, a nonfiction collection, and his prose and poetry have appeared in a variety of journals. He and his wife, Susan, now live on a farm near Warrenton, Virginia.

From the Back Cover

There are certain special—and rare— books that refresh our understanding of how children see the world. This is one of those books. It's the story of a boy growing up in a lost time in an idyllic place—rural Virginia of the late 1940s.

Charlie Lewis is the only child of city people who, after the war, choose to live at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains on a "gentleman's farm" near Charlottesville. Six years old when his family settles in the renovated corn crib on old Professor Jame's place, Charlie grows up in his personal version of heaven. His innocene is, of course, lost in the process. And so is his version of heaven.

But, as the old saying goes, still waters run deep, and Charlie runs deep, with a natural (almost supernatural) affinity for the land and its animals. For knowledge , he instinctively turns to a group of older black men, some of whom work the farm, others who are neighbors. Jim Crow laws and "the curse left on the land by slavery"—as old Professor James puts it—are still very much in evidence. Even so, Charlie's passions endear him to these men. They understand that he is lonely even if he does not. They watch out for him. And more—they love him.

Winter Run is a story that lets us escape for a moment our own noisy and complicated contemporary lives. Like The Red Pony, like Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals, it takes us back to the joys of childhood's unrestricted enthusiasm and curiosity.

Reviews

Ashcom uses a young boys love of animals as the vehicle for a graceful, compassionate ode to farm life in a bygone era in his elegiac debut novel. The book revolves around the childhood of Charlie Lewis as he grows up on a Virginia farm in the 1940s, with each chapter constructed around a different incident involving the various farm animals and local critters. It takes a few chapters for Ashcom to find his prose rhythm, as he presents some background on Charlies father, a logger, and an episode of animal abuse by a neighbor that infuriates both the boy and the community. Next follow accounts featuring wild dogs and a boar, followed by the story of a hunt for a mysterious gray fox, and finally an especially touching yarn about the death of the family mule as Charlie goes to extraordinary lengths to give it a proper burial. The dark side of farm life is portrayed when a fire threatens the small town, but Ashcom balances that incident with a humorous story in which Charlie is given a pony that turns out to have a serious rebellious streak. The subtext of the book is the boys unique but understated relationships with the towns second-class African-American residents. Ashcom is a smooth, compassionate writer who displays a nice feel for nature, local color, his animal and human subjects (though strong female characters are noticeably lacking), and a flair for tweaking the heartstrings without crossing the line into mawkishness. This is more a collection of related stories than a true novel, but there's enough talent and charm in these rural yarns to mark Ashcom as a promising newcomer.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Soon after the end of World War II, Gretchen and Charles Lewis move with their son, Charlie, to a farm near the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. At age five, Charlie finds this rural setting to be heaven. The abundance of love and friendship from his mother, the old professor who lives in the big house, and the elderly Negro farmhand, Matthew, creates an idyllic world ripe for exploration. Learning country ways from Matthew and feeling compelled to make them his own, Charlie experiences firsthand the dangers of the hog lot, befriends a cranky mule for want of a horse to ride, and discovers his love for hunting dogs by adopting a stray and taking up 'possum hunting with Matthew's friends. Country life can be shockingly cruel, however, as Charlie discovers after an incident with a pack of wild dogs during a long, hard winter. Ashcom's first novel is a tender tale of discovery that will appeal to that special man with sensitivity, respect for life, and a love of God-a reader overlooked by popular literature. Recommended for public libraries.
Thomas L. Kilpatrick, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Rural Virginia in the 1940s was a magical place into which modernity had not yet crept. This attracted city dwellers Charles and Gretchen, who moved there after World War II with their precocious son, Charlie. Charlie was inquisitive about everything, especially nature. He had a knack with animals, almost uncannily knew what they were thinking. He also had a knack for seeming more grown-up than he was, which endeared him to the adults of the community. Especially since there were few other children around, the adults took care of Charlie--he was always around, and they didn't mind. Charlie also had a knack for mixing equally well with the black folks who worked on the farm and in the town, along with the white landowners and the professor-patriarch of the community. Ashcom creates a very sweet, almost mystical tale of a boy who was amazed by what nature brought him, his growing up, and his understanding that all things, even life as he knows it, are passing. Michael Spinella
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Prologue

Gretchen's Arms

It was a dark day. Water glistened black on the sidewalks. The naked branches of the trees lining the street hung overhead like webbed fingers on crooked arms. Another two degrees and it would all be frozen. Everything was close, everything held tight, bare hands clenched in pockets.

There were new buildings and a lot of construction around the hospital. But I couldn't mistake the smell once I walked through the doors. The color-coded lines on the walls were supposed to guide me to my destination. They didn't make any sense. Finally a nurse gave up explaining and just took me to the ward.

And there she was. I would hardly have recognized her. The disease had taken her away. Who would have ever thought that so much flesh was necessary to make a face. Hers was gone. Skin stretched taut over the bones that everyone said were the source of her beauty. Bones. People had talked about them. She was unmistakably Scandinavian. In youth her creamy white blond hair had fallen to her shoulders. She wore it that way even after it turned silver. She had been tall, willowy, with slender arms. Arms always waiting for me, reaching out to take me back. But not now. It was too late. This time I was sure. Her rings were gone. They had looked foreign on her long, tapered fingers, anyway.

I watched her. Her cool slate-gray eyes were closed, her breath rising and falling, the kind of breathing you do when you are in pain. Tubes. The whole nine yards.

All my life I called her Gretchen except in loaded moments. Then she became Mother-the Swedish orphan, raised by friends after her parents both died of cancer within a single year. The friends were Catholic and strict. Gretchen was expected to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. But she never had. How could one thing be three? Or the other way around? She was defiant. And so for the rest of her life she received the sacrament in her left hand although she was right-handed.

"Hello Mother." Her body shifted slightly.

Then the idiot question: "How are you?"

"Fine."

What do you say to the already as-good-as-dead-to one whose rings and bracelets have been removed? I put my hand on her wrist. It was cold and very small.

"I am here. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"No thank you." In clear English.

There followed two days of tension and suspense, arguments with doctors about pain medication, about the chances of her coming back. I knew she wouldn't, not looking like that. She knew how she looked.

I had to leave for a few days. I told her what I was doing. She came up from wherever it was she was and said, "Before you go, make a list of your choices and put it on the chair. I never approved of them-but put it on the chair." Then she went away again.

My choices? My choices? What do you mean?

I couldn't breathe. It was like suffocation from the dust around a grain bag when it is being filled. The dust is like ether and the world

Edition details

• Publisher: A Shannon Ravenel Book
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 156512328X
• ISBN 13: 9781565123281
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240