If ever it could be said that a man had set his life on fire, that would be true of Henry Garrett, the protagonist of John Gregory Brown's bittersweet novel, A Thousand Miles from Nowhere. But over the course of this quietly seductive story, Brown (Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery) succeeds in transforming a character notable for "his peculiar proclivity for melancholy, his abysmally romantic attachment to sorrow" into a modest but appealing hero.
Henry's flight from New Orleans to the small town of Marimore, Va., in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is the culmination of more than a year of disastrous choices that include leaving his wife, Amy (an author of exotic cookbooks), purchasing an abandoned grocery store with the inheritance from his mother's estate and quitting his job as a high school English teacher. It's hard to imagine his life getting much worse, until, shortly after he arrives in Virginia, he accidentally kills a prison inmate, who steps into the path of Henry's car in hopes of securing a $5,000 death benefit for his impoverished family.
As Brown patiently reveals in a series of ruminative flashbacks, what Henry calls his mind's "clatter and chaos, the clutter and noise, the wreck and ruin" are the legacy of a depressive father who abandoned his family when Henry was 14, and a reclusive artist mother who shut herself up in her bedroom to paint. As we come to understand his family's "penchant for madness," Henry gradually transforms from a man who looks like he's made willfully poor choices into a figure of real pathos.
The odd instrument of that metamorphosis is an epic love poem written by the late husband of Latangi Chakravarty, the owner of the Spotlight Motel in Marimore, where Henry lands, broke and exhausted, after his trek from New Orleans. Aided by Marge Brockman, the officious, kindhearted secretary to the local judge, Henry's first stumbling steps on the road to recovery soon become more sure-footed.
John Gregory Brown doesn't make it easy, at first, to live inside Henry's head as he seems to make little progress in keeping his demons at bay. But Henry's realization that "a life could be changed by a story" provides the energy for the novel's second half that finds him performing acts of charity, confronting the ruin of his native city and believing, against all evidence, that he can win back Amy's heart. A Thousand Miles from Nowhere is a charming portrait of how redemption can appear in the most unlikely circumstances. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer
Shelf Talker: Hurricane Katrina provides the backdrop for a charming story of one man's journey to recover his life.