The New Valley Read online

  Praise for The New Valley:

  “Full of tenderness and looming menace … Gripping … Weil meticulously imagines people and their histories, and presents them as a product of their places. This is perhaps the hardest thing for a fiction writer of any age, working in any form, to accomplish…. Keep writing novellas, Josh Weil, because you write very good ones. You think on it, and we’ll watch.”

  —Anthony Doerr, The New York Times Book Review

  “Weil’s debut is a stark and haunting triptych of novellas set in the rusted-out hills straddling the border between the Virginias…. Taken individually, each novella offers its own tragic pleasure, but together, the works create a deeply human landscape that delivers great beauty.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “[Weil’s] language is exquisite, his sentences glorious. In fact, [he] writes the kinds of sentences you want to go sniff and then slosh around in your mouth for a while before heading into the next paragraph. The kind that make you set the book down and think, the kind that can break your heart with their truthful simplicity…. Refreshing and engaging.”

  —Sherri Flick, Ploughshares

  “I was captivated and moved by each of these finely made novellas. The quiet, mostly ordinary lives of the characters who populate The New Valley shine with a strange and intense luminosity that is at times heartbreaking, at other times triumphant. There is a magic and gentle beauty in this book that makes me remember why I had always wanted to be a writer.”

  —Tim O’Brien

  “Josh Weil’s debut book The New Valley has a sense of the notable on every page. This is the very rare but clear case of the sky being the limit for a young author.”

  —Jim Harrison

  “In these meticulously crafted narratives about rural life in the Virginia hill country, Josh Weil explores masculine loneliness with classic richness and depth. This is old-fashioned storytelling in the very best sense.”

  —Helen Schulman, author of P.S. and A Day at the Beach

  “This is beautiful, heartrending fiction. With deep pathos and stunning imagination, Weil gives a powerful voice to lives too often ignored and throws brilliant light on places in our country—and our hearts—that are too often in the dark. The New Valley marks the arrival of an important new writer in American letters.”

  —Bret Anthony Johnston, author of Corpus Christi: Stories

  “Josh Weil is a terrific young writer. His sense of what is crucial and dramatic makes his stories deeply alive.”

  —John Casey

  “In Josh Weil’s soulful debut fiction, hard, wintery men bring the near-dead back to life. A steer, a tractor, a woman bolt upright, clearly heart-charged by the obsessive attentions of these cut-off men. The prose unfailingly befits the action and is percussively wrought and rich or else plain and grave but always deeply moving.”

  —Christine Schutt, author of All Souls and Florida, a National Book Award Finalist

  “While I read these novellas, I realized at some point early on I kept holding my breath. Why? Because Josh Weil’s stories are about people who tell no one anything, ever—men who know more cattle than they do people, and who trust the cattle more. Men who shrug off their heartbreak and die with their secrets. By turns sweet, funny, heartbreaking, and terrifying, Josh Weil makes his quietly powerful debut.”

  —Alexander Chee, author of Edinburgh

  “Weil’s domain is the parallel world of rural America that still exists just outside the swaddled precincts of the twenty-first century. His prose—taut, precise, as unflinching as it is tender, particularly in Ridge Weather— suggests a strong new voice in American fiction.”

  —Mark Slouka, author of The Visible World

  “Beware these seemingly quiet novellas: they hit hard. Josh Weil has created devastatingly memorable characters of people rarely noticed and never loved. With remarkable skill and insight, he has located the spot in the human heart where loneliness resides. Exquisitely written, deeply felt, and haunting, The New Valley is a beautiful book.”

  —Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of The Scenic Route

  “With The New Valley, Josh Weil makes a spectacular entry in the art of American storytelling. His rendering of place is as strong as Flannery O’Connor’s; his engagement with the moral landscape as sure as Cormac McCarthy’s. In their contemplation of the past, Weil’s characters —earthy, scrappy, often comic—seek restoration. These three fine novellas remind us with wit and energy that we are all in for repair.”

  —Maureen Howard

  “In these three beautiful novellas, the sky above and the soil below bear witness to stories so elemental and stunningly intricate that they seem carved from hickory…. Writing about plain-mouthed, flawed, of-the-earth characters requires understanding, much compassion, and a kind heart…. [Weil] gives voice to those without, to those entombed on forgotten hillsides, to those orphaned and tending calves and tractors, reminding us that no matter how isolated, how lonely, tender hearts burn everywhere, they burn bright, and they burn on.”

  —Don Waters, The Believer

  “[The New Valley] renders the mysteriousness of the human experience in delicious detail: every shaft of sunlight, each well-oiled bolt, memories, dreams, and conversations—all hover within delightful reach, products of a ghostly place only resting partly in the imagination.”

  —Orion

  “Weil’s prose is quiet and assured … These stories are real heartbreakers, ringing true with loss and loneliness…. Finely crafted … Unforgettable.”

  —Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune

  “A restive nobility binds the sorrowful protagonists of Weil’s stellar debut collection of novellas, each a tender anthem to a starkly unforgiving Virginia countryside and the misguided determination of its most forsaken residents…. Throughout, Weil limns a rugged emotional landscape every bit as raw and desolate as the land that inspired it, delivering an eloquent portrait of people who defiantly cling to a fierce independence.”

  —Carol Haggas, Booklist

  “[A] meticulous and imaginative portrayal of characters shaped by rural life.”

  —Narrative magazine (Writers to Watch)

  “Keenly observed … Absolutely and utterly devastating … Weil’s major talent—and it is major—lies in making the gears and levers of the book operate seamlessly, like the engines and equipment that litter its pages. He writes with little pretense or adornment, content to let the story come to him…. The New Valley does not feel exploitative or condescending. Every word feels necessary. Weil’s keen observational eye brings the smallest details of the lives of these three men to light, and their acuity makes his other analyses gleam with truth…. Weil makes the reader aware of [his characters’] humanity, and their emotions and heartbreak give this book a quiet heaviness, like the Blue Ridge Mountains that loom in the background.”

  —James Scott, The Rumpus

  “Critics claiming that American short fiction is on life-support should sample the healing elixir of Josh Weil’s breakout collection. In this mesmerizing debut, Weil offers up three razor-sharp novellas … that ring sincere and rarely hit a false note…. These are quiet stories of struggle, survival, heartbreak, and grace…. Readers will find glimpses of Bobbie Ann Mason’s depictions of the small-town poor mixed with Annie Proulx’s evocative landscape language…. [Weil’s] writing is understated [and] as strong as steel.”

  —Cody Corliss, Charleston Gazette-Mail

  “The New Valley heralds the introduction of a master storyteller to literature. The depth of sadness his intricately drawn characters experience in this trio of linked novellas is only equaled by the exquisitely described settings.”

  —Largehearted Boy (Favorite Novel of the Year)

/>   “In langauge that’s sure, quick, and almost magical in its ability conjure dimension from flat paper, Josh Weil has created portraits of hard lives that will stand the test of time.”

  —Tony Buchsbaum, January magazine (online)

  THE NEW VALLEY

  THE NEW VALLEY

  Novellas by

  JOSH WEIL

  Copyright © 2009 by Josh Weil

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 or [email protected].

  A portion of Ridge Weather appeared in Narrative magazine.

  Stillman Wing line drawings by Josh Weil.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-9989-8 (e-book)

  Grove Press

  an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

  841 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Distributed by Publishers Group West

  www.groveatlantic.com

  For my father,

  who loves the land

  CONTENTS

  Ridge Weather

  Stillman Wing

  Sarverville Remains

  RIDGE

  WEATHER

  It was the hay bales that did it. The men and women who knew Osby least, who nodded at him from passing trucks or said “Hey” while scanning cans of soup in the Mic-or-Mac, they might not have seen the change come over him. But the few who knew him a little better would have noticed Osby’s usual quietness grown heavier, that he stuffed his hands in his sweatshirt pocket a little more often. They would have chalked it up to him missing his father, figured it for nothing more than a rebalancing of the weight of a life that suddenly contained one instead of two people. They would have been wrong.

  The truth was, it didn’t even make sense to Osby. How could rolls of old dead grass scare him so? What was the sense behind it being that— the sight of those wasted bales on that wasted government land—that finally dug from him his tears? But it was the bales. And afterwards, he had known only that it was going to get worse.

  In those weeks, as the memory of old Cortland Caudill receded to the horizons of peoples’ minds, even those passing Osby in the supermarket aisles would have felt the sadness still hanging off him. Though it probably would have seemed pretty normal to them. In a place like Eads County, people sometimes get like Osby did. They’re scattered all over the valley, hidden from each other by the old ridges and thick woods, by log walls of age-sunk cabins, new ranch-house brick, by paint-peeling clapboard and trailer home siding so thin the propane bill is twice what it should be, never mind the electricity for the glowing space heaters that struggle in each room.

  The First Congregational Church of Harts Run had always looked pretty to Osby. Some early mornings, when he was out on Route 33 before the sun had scaled the ridge, he would round the bend and see the church way up ahead, perched at the top of the hill as if God had put the limestone there as a plinth. Once in a long while—it had happened just a few times in all his thirty-eight years—the sun would rise exactly as Osby came barreling around the corner, and the church would light up right before his eyes. Times like that, he would take a sip of coffee, turn the radio down so it blended with the rumble of the Sierra’s engine, and imagine it was his headlights, and not the sun, that pulled the church out of the half-dark. He liked to pretend that if he hadn’t come along just then, the church would have stayed dim all day. That, as much as anything else, was why he chose to hold the funeral there.

  The day of the service, it was warm for January in the hills. When Osby arrived at the church, about an hour before everyone else, he swung open the truck door and held out a hand, palm up in the air, gazing at the sky, testing the sun like most people would rain. Thirty-eight, thirty-nine, he thought to himself. If it kept up like this, the pastures would stay clear of snow; he’d save on hay. He wondered if the ground up at the family cemetery would have thawed a little if he’d waited a day on the funeral. Not much, he decided. It was always colder on Bowmans Ridge. Even on those fall days, years ago, when he was a kid and they used to go up there for picnics. Earlier that morning, breaking up the frozen topsoil with a pickax, the memory had come to him: his father, shivering as he walked beneath the old apple tree, over dry leaves between the graves, searching for a good patch of sunlight in which to spread the blanket.

  Now, Osby switched on the radio and sat in the truck cab, waiting for the DJ to hand over the weather report. Every autumn, as far back as he could remember—five years old? four?—he would climb the apple tree, shimmy out on the twisted limbs, and shake down a fast thumping of fruit. From twenty feet up, he would watch his father wander below, stooping to pick up the few good ones, carrying them back to Osby’s mother. She would sit in the sun, soft and edgeless in a thick, lilac sweater, her knees drawn to her chest, gazing over the valley. His father would crouch next to her, peeling an apple with his pocketknife. He would hand her slices. She would reach up and take them from his fingers.

  The year before she died, his mother was too weak from the chemotherapy to handle the rough ride up to Bowmans Ridge. So it was just Osby and his father standing by the truck, the breeze between them making noise in the leaves. After a while, his father strode to the tree, yanked an apple off, came back. Osby listened to him chew and watched the furious movement of his jaw. Halfway through the apple, Cortland snapped open his pocketknife and cut off a slice. Carefully, Osby took it from the offered palm. They looked out at the valley. Osby was twelve.

  In the truck cab, the DJ blared on. Glad of the noise, Osby shook his head, smiled a little. What a strange man his father had been.

  Forty-one degrees and sunny, according to the radio.

  Osby grinned. He’d figured out long ago it was about three degrees cooler up in the hills. He glanced around the empty parking lot, as if looking for someone who might congratulate him. There weren’t even any tires grinding up the gravel yet.

  The church never did get more than half full, but the minister gave as good a sermon as could have been expected. Some of it was pure bull—how Cortland had stayed by his wife to the end; how to his last days he had never questioned God’s will. Some of it was half-right—how Osby’s father had worked all his life to make the farm prosperous; he had never meddled in business that wasn’t his; he had single-handedly raised his son into a fine man. And some of it was dead on—how Cortland Caudill had loved his cows.

  Osby figured he couldn’t have done much better. His father had not been a communicative man. He wasn’t a bad man, not even a bad father. He wasn’t mean to anyone; he just wasn’t especially nice to anyone, either. Outside, melted snow dripped off the church eves. It sounded like spring. Osby felt he ought to miss his father, but he didn’t, not really. Neither, he guessed, did the others in the church. His father hadn’t really cared to make many friends.

  Osby looked around at the thirty-odd people, most of them his father’s age. They looked peaceful. The minister didn’t mention the one thing that would have made everybody uneasy, didn’t even acknowledge it with any special condolences to Osby. So there wasn’t much to be upset about in the room. Swaths of sunlight streamed through the windows, warm like only strong sun through glass on a winter’s afternoon can be. Inside, Osby guessed, it was a comfortable sixty-
nine, seventy degrees.

  At the end, the minister asked if anyone wanted to say something, and the whole roomful of people looked at Osby. He wished they’d go back to sitting happily in the sunlight. The minister shut the Bible very quietly and smiled right at him. Osby smiled back, but felt just afterwards that it was the wrong thing to do. He glanced at Carl and, sitting at Carl’s side, Lynne and their two boys further down the pew. Carl scratched his newly trimmed beard, jowls shaking, and flicked a glance back at Osby. It was a look Osby knew: the worry that came over his friend when Carl realized Osby was going to say something.

  Osby wasn’t considered the smartest man in Eads County. But then no one, not even Carl, knew him well enough to realize that he wasn’t all that far from it either. His problem was that people could hear only what he said, and not what he thought. His words almost always came out saying something other than what he had intended; and, even when he did get them right, they were usually the last thought of a sequence. Without anyone knowing the process he’d taken to get there, what he finally got to rarely made much sense. Over the years, it had worn him down, so now he seldom said very much of anything to anybody.

  Slowly, Osby stood up, taking as long about it as he could, letting the pew’s groans and creaks fill the silence. He stood there for a moment, looking at his cracked, red hands pressed against the edge of the pew in front of him. He tried to think of what his father would have liked him to say, tried to think of what Cortland Caudill would have said himself, and then, failing at that, Osby just tried to remember something good about his dad. The thing that came to him wasn’t one memory, but a series of them: his father trying out names for the new calves while clanking around under the dump truck, or while picking through clothes at the church donations store in Ripplemead, or ruining their hunting by calling out potential calf-christenings—“Woodrow?” “Lloyd?” “Skeeter?”—from his tree stand to Osby’s. Years and years of it, from as far back as Osby could remember. He knew there were other things that made his father happy, but he couldn’t recall them.