Round Rock

by Michelle Huneven

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

In a small town among the citrus groves in the Santa Bernita Valley, so the locals claim, nothing ever goes according to plan. "It's a great place to live, they say, if you like surprises: it's just like life, only different."

Certainly a number of Rito's inhabitants--fewer than a hundred in all--are surprised to be living here. Red Ray, for instance, a wildly alcoholic lawyer who bought a dilapidated Victorian mansion in an attempt to rehabilitate his marriage and regain the affections of his wife and young son. After destroying those hopes with a spectacular final binge, Red established a drunk farm, Round Rock, on the ruins. There, one day at a time, he follows his new, unexpected calling.

Many months after her husband decamped (almost immediately) for Los Angeles, Libby Daw still lives alone in their trailer, and finds herself even more rooted to the valley she dreams of escaping.

And there's Lewis Fletcher, a sometime graduate student whose keen intelligence is sorely tested by his erratic behavior and current predicament. Without exactly knowing why, and entirely against his wishes--or by default and sheer good luck--he finds himself placed in Ray's care at Round Rock.

As these people seek out or maintain their various niches in the valley, the peculiar history of the place asserts itself. An heiress descended from the original settlers, Billie Fitzgerald still acts as though she owns it all; devoted to her father and son, she obscures her mercurial emotions from even her closest friends. The past also returns with David Ibañez, whose family had harvested the groves for generations--and whose talents and secrets (and thus, he discovers, his future) are inextricably bound to the complex, close-knit town he thought he had left behind.

With insight matched with artistry, Michelle Huneven traces the emerging destinies of these characters as each of them struggles for peace and equilibrium, even happiness and love, against hapless, all-too-human frailty and circumstance.

A vivid evocation of landscape and community, Round Rock derives great power from psychological subtlety, and from affection for and profound understanding of lives strained or broken but on the mend. Fresh, remarkably mature, and constantly surprising, this astonishing debut wins both your trust and your heart.

Release date: March 2, 2011

Publisher: Vintage

Print pages: 304

Sample

The following Sunday, the lake was socked in with fog. Libby set up two poles, wrote in her journal, caught one fish.

Someone called her name and Lewis pulled out of the fog like creation itself. Her first reaction was, How dare he? Her second, pleased surprise. Or maybe the two thoughts were simultaneous: How dare he cause her pleased surprise?

"This is the second week I've come looking for you." Lewis squatted by her chair. "This is a cool thing to do. You're right -- it is like going to church, only better." He touched the cane pole. "Hey, want to go to Miserable Yolanda's for breakfast?"

"Can you go there?" she said.

"Why not?"

"Isn't it a bar?"

"What, you think I'm going to drink?"

"No, no..." She stammered stupidly. Alcoholism etiquette, she sensed, was a minefield for the uninitiated.

He punched her arm lightly. "I'll be safe with you. You won't let me partake, right?"

His dark eyes danced with what? Derision?

"Sorry," she said to him. "It's none of my business."

When they got back to town, he was too hot and wanted to change out of his sweater. "Care to see my room?"

She wasn't crazy about ducking into the Mills Hotel with a man in clear view of Main Street yet she'd always wondered about the fine white clapboard building.

The lobby, though dingy, was clean and had an enormous hearth built of large, white, round river rocks. Lewis' room, at the top of creaky wooden stairs, barely had space for a bed and a bureau. Thumbtacked to the wall was a t-shirt silkscreened with a caricature of Wallace Stevens. A postcard of a blue jar was tacked upside-down above the t-shirt's neck. "It's a joke," Lewis said. "Wallace Stevens wrote a poem about a blue jar. Here, I'll read it to you."

Libby sat down on the bed since there was no place else to sit, unless she wanted to roost on a big clump of laundry in the room's only chair. She didn't understand the poem. The room was hot, the radiator hissed. Lewis moved on to another poem, with even more dizzying words. "The Idea of Order at Key West." At least she didn't have to think of anything to say. Then, he put the book down on the foot of the bed -- she assumed he was going to rummage in the laundry chair for a shirt -- but without a word, he placed his hands on her shoulders. He came in close; it was a stare-down, an ophthalmic assault. Her mind sped. He couldn't kiss her when she was all fishy like this. But he did. He was kissing her neck and jaw, licking his way back to her lips. In no time he was undressing her, a series of insistent tugs. She didn't mind. In fact she liked this focussed, no-nonsense approach. This was what she thought would happen, although maybe not so quickly, and she couldn't have predicted that he'd have such authority. She was naked and he was still in that old wool sweater and jeans. He looked her straight in the eye. Scary, but fun. Really fun.

Sprawled across the bed, he pushed his pants down, rolled away from her to put on a condom and, re-establishing eye-contact, promptly guided himself inside her. His eyes flickered. The musty sweater was itchy, abrasive, like his beard. She didn't even like beards, thought them slovenly. The whole grungy room was slovenly. She came fast and hard. Like I'm the man, she thought. Premature. He smiled and, without pulling out of her, took off his sweater. His chest was hairless, the ribs pronounced. His olive skin was granular, like muscled sand.

"Do you want to talk about this?" he asked, still inside her.

"Not now!"

"We're doin' it," he said. "Shouldn't we talk about it?"

"God, Lewis." She bundled his butt in her hands and, to shut him up, pushed him into her.

"No?" Laughing a little. More in control than she ever dreamed he'd be. "You sure you don't want to talk about this?"

Afterwards, he held her forearm, kissed her ear. He got up first, and brought her back a mug of lukewarm tap water. When she returned from the bathroom, his pants were on. "Breakfast?" he said.

EXCERPT 2

By eleven-twenty, when Lewis knocked on her door, Libby had given up on him and dressed for bed in nightgown and kimono. She let him in and saw at first glance that his earlier, pressing enthusiasm had dwindled. He slunk into her kitchen, bad news incarnate.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Sorry it took me so long," he said. "Red and I had to have a little chat. You mind if I smoke?"

"Go ahead," she said, suddenly queasy. "What did you chat about?"

"You don't want to know."

"About me?"

"In the abstract."

"What'd you say?"

"I didn't tell him anything."

What was to tell? "What'd he say, then?"

"He told me to watch my step in all this." Lewis flung an arm to indicate her kitchen, her house, her.

"That makes two of us."

"Maybe I should go," he said. "No sense in dragging both of us down. I'll finish this smoke and leave you the hell alone. Unless you want to make some coffee. I could stand a cup of coffee."

"At this hour? Won't it keep you up?"

"I only wish."

Libby pulled the can of Yuban from the fridge and filled the coffee maker with water.

"This is it, this is who I am," Lewis said. "Up and down, up and down, ever since I got sober." He sat cross-legged on a kitchen chair.

"This is me, the dull lump."

Libby laughed softly. "Dull lump is the last term I'd apply to you."

"I just think too much. My mind is an alternate digestive tract. I chew myself up. I make myself sick. I'm a living, breathing wreck. Hey, will you walk on my back?"

Holding onto the back of the chair, Libby took cautious wobbly steps along his spine. He grabbed her ankle, reached for her hand, and pulled her down among the chair legs. After all that gloom, it was good to be thrashing around on the linoleum and kissing. When he took the condom from his pocket -- she loved that he took care of such things -- he said, "We might as well hit the bed. If you don't mind. I mean, nothing against your cold, hard, gritty floor..."

He insisted on constant eye contact, an intensity she found compelling and connective. Did he know what he was doing?

They smoked afterwards, sharing a cigarette. Libby made herself get up to pee, otherwise it was cystitis for sure. When she returned from the bathroom, he was dressed, drinking coffee. Her heart sank. She'd been expecting him to stay. "You don't have to leave."

"You want to sleep," he said. "I want to pull up trees. Or juggle chain saws. I'd just keep you awake." He sat on the bed to pull on his socks. She curled around him and it was true, his body hummed. "Maybe I'll have one more cup of coffee." He fetched it himself and drank, sitting on the edge of the bed, stroking her back.

In the morning, Libby wrote: Running late, but will not abandon this journal just because I'm seeing someone. Don't let me stop flossing either.

First man in my bed since Stockton. How do I feel? My emotions slide right off that question. I'm still in a sexual blur. Already feel a bladder infection coming on. Guzzling cranberry juice.

Lewis was trouble, she decided, but mostly to himself. She should leave him alone. But her whole body -- muscles, skin, eyes, even her hair and teeth wanted more of him first.