by Robert Hill
He took a rag from the davenport and went to the kitchen to wet it so he could clean his friend’s face of the indignity of his day. The raccoon he had shooed not too long ago had claimed the sinktop for his own, but jumped from it to an open drawer nearby when Hunko stepped within hissing distance. Hunko wanted that rag to be as cool and soothing on Kennesaw’s face as the waters of Galilee, and he pumped that pump with all the might in him to dredge from the bottom of time as much cold cleansing comfort as that dirty old rag could soak in. And as he dug for his something so deep down, so, too, did the raccoon in the drawer dig for who-knows-what, both of them sharing a determination to find that special something the eye cannot readily see. Hunko finished his pumping and wrung out the rag and snapped it at the raccoon and the raccoon lumbered for cover inside the cookstove, and with him out of the way Hunko peered into the drawer to see what all that pawing was about, but nothing in there seemed to him worth a raccoon’s trouble. It was a drawer full of pennies and pins: a hammer head missing its handle, a spoon in the bend of a hook, an apple core dried to a fossil, scraps of burlap and squiggles of twine and a frayed cut end of pale pink velvet, and generations of assorted miscellany and other nonsense from lives as everyday as this ‘n’ that. Here, too, was True no more towering than he was in her lone going; in the end she was just as much a sentimental slob as anybody else.
Hunko never cleaned anything as clean as he cleaned Kennesaw. The cool water was worth every bit of his effort for it returned to the man’s face the hue of the still living. True’s gone, Hunko told him then, and Kennesaw looked up at Hunko with bluer-than-blues that took on only the slimmest glimmer of slick, for there was not much liquid left in the man and whatever there was he needed to shed only for himself. He cupped Hunko’s nubby hand, the one so gently cooling his face with the rag, the hand that no matter how much of a man Hunko was right now was still smaller than his own, and he stopped Hunko’s hand from its gentle business, and with his hand there on Hunko’s, said to Hunko the three tenderest words Hunko had ever wanted to hear in his life; he said to Hunko, Take me home.
There is the shore we see from the distance when we are young and we think we are the first to see it and we are the only ones to know it is there, yet as we near it closer and closer it gives way to a shore more distant that is the real shore we are born to want to reach. It is the shore that made the first dweller leave the comfort of his cave, and his cousin the spear wielder find in the air a reason to do more than just live; it is the far shore that drew to this spot, this New Eden, the men and women who made what they could of the time they had here, and who traveled from here to an even more distant shore that no one will be left to recall.
The day’s weather had soothed from its fevered state to almost sleepy, but the day was getting late and Kennesaw did not have the strength in him to make the long walk home, even if he leaned on Hunko all the way. They walked along the long untraveled dirt that had once defined the center of their own pocket of paradise, and past Nedewen Field and its mouth full of old teeth that in time would wear to nubs of nothing, and beyond there as the moon began to rise through Saflutises’ gone-to-seed fields and past the rubble of Buckett barns and the fallen down structures of families long ago fallen from memory, and through to the thinning thick of woods that led from the clearing where the Drells’ wanderings ended. The morning’s stop-up in Kennesaw was starting to un-stop and he was growing too unstable to go beyond to Tumblers’ Ridge or the ridge beyond that that was spooked by the memory of Mawz, or make it all the way back to his own house where he might pass through Hunko’s gates for one last time, or make it out to Hunko’s place where Hunko had kept his matching pair of gates in swinging order should Kennesaw ever come to call; so they stopped for however long they’d need to rest on the shores of Grunts Pond, and Hunko helped Kennesaw sit his tired old self down on the rock of their remembered youth, and sat himself down right next to him close, and breathed in the balsam air like a very first breath and said to Kennesaw happy birthday, and Kennesaw smiled and said back yes, it is; then Kennesaw laid an arm around Hunko’s humped shoulder and it fit just right, and these two old men sat that way for as long as we can tell until their moon went down in the sky.
Author Bio
Robert Hill is a New Englander by birth, a West Coaster by choice, and an Oregonian by osmosis. As a writer, he has worked in advertising, entertainment, educational software, and not-for-profit fundraising. He is a recipient of a Literary Arts Walt Morey Fellowship and a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellowship. His debut novel, When All Is Said and Done (Graywolf Press), was shortlisted for the Oregon Book Awards’ Ken Kesey Award for Fiction.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the following people whose encouragement and support, from early on to completion and beyond, made the writing of this novel possible: Tom Spanbauer and the Dangerous Writers, Steve Arndt, Elizabeth Scott, Kathleen Lane, Dian Greenwood, and John Parker. Thank you to Gigi Little for bringing art out of the earth. Thanks to Mary Bisbee-Beek for her amazing publicity smarts, stamina, and enthusiasm. Thanks most of all to the ferociously talented Laura Stanfill, without whom this book simply would not be.
Readers’ Guide
1. Is The Remnants a love story? Why or why not?
2. What kind of a book would The Remnants be if it had been written without whimsy? What other authors reach deep into difficult subjects through humor and wit? How would your reaction to the book change if the characters had more normal names?
3. This novel is about aging and the final days of a community, but the word “death” never appears, and “die” appears only once. Can you find it?
4. Are there main characters in this novel? If so, who are they, and how does Robert Hill emphasize them over the others? If not, list some of the characters who have big roles in shaping New Eden’s trajectory.
5. Who is the narrator? Is it one person? Is it a person at all?
6. Name some factors that contribute to New Eden’s decline. Would any one thing have stopped, or slowed, its end?
7. Why does Kennesaw leave to study at the library? Why does he come back home every night?
8. True Bliss takes on a leadership role in New Eden. Name one or more instances where she alters the course of the town.
9. What is the purpose of folding so many memories into what is essentially a single story? How do the memories add weight to the front story tea-party plot?
10. Is the cover a graveyard? A path? Stone tablets?
11. New Eden is not anchored by real-world geography. Where do you think it is? Have you visited any ghost towns or once-thriving communities that now have small or nonexistent populations? Why do you think the author made the choice to avoid setting it in a “real” place?
12. Talk about dweller. Why is he part of the book? Does his presence make the fate of this particular town more universal? How about spear-wielder?
13. Each chapter of The Remnants could be considered a short story. Why did the author choose to use this format to write about the fate of a small town? Why do you think this book is labeled as a novel instead of a linked story collection? Are there any chapters that don’t work as independent pieces?
14. This novel features numerous riffs on the indignities of aging. How is True’s aging shown? Kennesaw’s? Hunko’s?
15. Would you want to live in such an isolated town? Why or why not?
To invite Robert Hill to your book club, contact him through
forestavenuepress.com or roberthill-theremnants.com.
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