What a shame I wasn't aware of Mr. Mosher's work before now. Points North, a book of short stories set in Kingdom Common, beautifully sketches the history of a region bordering Canada that has just enough quirk, Americana and spirit to be both delightful and at times sobering. Fans of Jon Hassler and other authors who have captured the essence of a region will enjoy getting to know the residents (past and present) of Kingdom Common.

Points North is one of those story collections that began slowly and comfortably, if quietly, then grew and grew until I knew it would be one of my favorites of this year. This is my first experience reading Mosher so I had no idea what to expect. Perhaps that is a good way to enter this collection of inter-related tales of the vast Kinneson family and Kingdom Common Vermont. The stories are not told in any particular order; you might encounter a man in one story and meet him in another as a boy with his grandfather.

It seems as if each tale is as good or better than the last, or perhaps it's the fact of spending more time in The Kingdom, with these very individualistic people, in a beautiful, if remote, setting, with a completely new situation in each outing. Mosher has a wonderful, understated sense of humor running through many of his stories and his writing is superb. You will see and feel this often difficult land as you read his words. And you will also come to see why the descendants of the original settlers so often choose to stay.

"Family, she thought as she headed into the village. Fishing, hunting, baseball, the newspaper, the farm now growing back to woods--all came down to family. In the Kingdom, family was everything." This quote from the final story, The Songbirds of Vermont, seems to sum up the "philosophy" of the Kingdom (if there is such a thing. As a side note, every time I write or say the town's name, I say Kingdom Come! I wonder what the citizens would say about that?)

Kingdom Common and its inhabitants are both treasures I will savor and I will most definitely be looking at more of Mosher's work. I'm only sorry that I discovered him after his death.

A definite 5 that I highly recommend.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

"The past was fair game. At least in the Kingdom, and in the stories Jim wrote, the past was still very much a part of the present."

What a collection of beautiful stories from one of America's great regional writers. Mosher is one of those writers that has been on my to-read list for years but I never got around to starting one of his novels until I heard of his death last year. As a lover of short stories and American regional fiction, I was so excited to read this collection. There's something magical about these, knowing that it was his last (as he did himself and said so before his death) and that it would transport readers back to his fictional world of Kingdom County. Longtime fans of Mosher will enjoy this collection the most as characters, settings, and events from the novels are revisited. Since I have not read his novels (or seen the movies they were made into), I know that I missed out on some of the magic here but each story was lovely and charming as a new reader.

There is a true love in every piece for the untarnished beauty of nature, the richness of history, and the importance of family. I really felt a sense of the author himself in the stories and it made the pieces each feel more real than typical fiction. It's like he put life itself into them. My favorites were "Where is Don Quixote?", "Sisters", and "Dispossessed". I'm looking forward to the novels even more so now to meet these characters more fully and spend more time in the Kingdom.

Note: I received a free Kindle edition of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to do so.

As I finished the last story in this marvelous collection, it was with a sad and heavy heart. Another amazing author we will not hear from again, a man who created the mythic landscape of Kingdom County in Vermont. The Kinnesons, who have inhabited this place for generations, on both sides of the poverty line, both sides of the law. They are fascinating characters whom I have come to cherish.

The stories in this collection go back and forth in time, in them we are able to revisit some of the characters I have come to love. There is humor, betrayal, much fishing, and descriptions of nature. They go from heartbreaking to humorous and somewhere in between. The people and place come alive in all his books and of course in these stories as well. They truly earn the five stars I have given them.

Luckily for me, I started this series relatively late so I still have his early books to go back and read. They are in my mind comparable to Hardy's Wessex tales, the late Kent Haruf and his Colorado towns and Wendel Barry's terrific novels. They are novels, stories to cherish, as the people and places in them come alive and capture the reader, with some wonderful, smart prose and depth of characters. Another author I will surely miss.

ARC from Netgalley.

POINTS NORTH by Howard Frank Mosher contains a series of short stories set in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Mosher, a beloved and extremely well-regarded writer, finished this collection shortly before his death in January, 2017. The stories focus on the Kinneson family and as such are full of true "characters," including strong woman like Miss Madge and Miss Mary Mae in "Sisters." Similar to parts of his recent (2015) novel, God's Kingdom, these stories are a bit melancholy at times, dealing with change, especially death and its aftermath for family members. Like Mosher's other writing, POINTS NORTH will prompt readers to slow down, to reflect, to appreciate nature, and to smile about small town relationships, ultimately thinking of all that is truly important. If you have not read his earlier work, let these stories be a brief introduction, but definitely pick up more titles by Howard Frank Mosher; my personal favorite is Northern Borders.

Blog post also links to review of one of his earlier titles:
http://treviansbookit.blogspot.com/2015/10/gods-kingdom-by-howard-frank-mosher.html

I loved this book. Typically, with a book of short stories, I am left feeling incomplete with the end of each story. Not so with this one by Mr Mosher. It is a wonderful collection of stories with fantastic character development.

My thanks to netgalley and St Martins Press for this advanced readers copy.

I usually don’t read short story books. I am so glad I read this book! It is wonderfully written and I am sorry to find this author has passed away so this was his last book. I will be reading this author’s previous books! This was just a feel good book that caught and held my attn.

I requested it because I have like Howard Frank Mosher who’s previous works I have read. I didn’t realize initially that this book was short stories — a format I don’t often like but prefer when connected — as these are.

Naturally some stories are better than others. All are vividly told with characters who inhabit the northeast kingdom -- the setting for Mosher’s works.

There are some fabulous phrases— Mosher is a master wordsmith.
Consider:
Nothing delighted him more than the paradoxes of his own nature
Ornery cheap
Weightless as Love

And humor: Miss Mary’s ashes speak from a jar.

The stories go back and forth in time with characters — sometimes a source of confusion but not always.

3.5 but not rounding up.

I wasn't familiar with Mosher's work but I'm glad to have discovered him now. This is a beautiful book of short stories that are all connected - which makes them feel like a novel. The characters are vivid and the stories are interesting - and the writing is excellent. I enjoyed reading this book.

If you're not sure about short stories, try this. This is a beautifully crafted collection that never leaves you wanting. Mosher's Kingdom County, Vermont is a place that evokes such a powerful pull. What's wonderful is that he crosses socioeconomic lines and makes you feel the emotions of a wide range of people. The stories are linked by the Kinneson family. You won't like all the characters (you aren't meant to) and be aware that the time line shifts (remember it's not a novel, it's a short story collection) but that's how life works. Mosher has captured Vermont in a way that will remind you that a good writer can transcend place; many of the people you meet could be residents of your town. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I started reading this, and realized it was a series of short stories. Although I really enjoy this author's writing, I don't much like short stories.

POINTS NORTH (2017)
Howard Frank Mosher
Macmillan, 208 pages
★★★★

One year ago, Howard Frank Mosher of Irasburg, Vermont passed away. Seven weeks before he died, Mosher completed his final novel, Points North. Like most of the things he wrote, Points North is about the most remote part of Vermont, the Northeast Kingdom*—three counties, 2027 square miles and just 65,000 people. A state joke holds that the Northeast Kingdom is where Vermonters go to get away from it all. In Mosher's books, Essex, Orleans, and Caledonia counties are elided into Kingdom County, and the tale is spun that it was an independent republic after the Revolutionary War because it refused to accept the existence of slavery. (That was actually true of all of Vermont from 1777-91, though confusion over the borders between Vermont, New York, and Quebec also had to be settled until Vermont became the 14th state and the first to explicitly ban slavery.)

Mosher authored numerous books made into films by Jay Craven and is probably best known for Stranger in the Kingdom (1989), North Country (1997), and Where Rivers Flow North (1998). You could think of Mosher as the consummate regional writer and place him among company such Wendell Berry, Carolyn Chute, and William Faulkner, though he generally cited Twain and Cervantes as his role models and we can assuredly see in Mosher echoes of their wit, sense of the absurd, and penchant for flawed protagonists. Points North is a seven-generation collection of Kingdom County tales centering on the extended Kinneson family and loosely held together as recollections, discoveries, and retold legends between aging brothers Charlie and Jim Kinneson, the latter the editor of the (fictional) Kingdom Common Monitor.

In Points North, Kingdom County compensates for its paucity of residents with a surplus of colorful characters, among them runaway slaves, a fast-talking huckster evangelist, and a plus-sized heterosexual man who happens also to be a cross dresser and the best fiddler in the region! Mosher, like Chute, shows us both the picture postcard beauty of rural life, but also the struggles, heartbreaks and hardships of people living in a place with more scenery and winter than wealth or opportunity. Life in a region with a short growing season, declining farms, over 100 inches of annual snowfall, and subzero wintertime temperatures requires a delicate mix of steeliness and neighborliness and in Mosher the two traits are not always in balance. Most of his Kingdom locals are down-to-earth and plainspoken; the region is well watered, the humor is dry, and the tongues are often barbed—especially when clucking at outsiders. The Kinneson brothers sometimes speculate that were the area hermetically sealed, it might be better off; modernity and change come to the Kingdom like a knife in the back—a dam project that would flood a fishing camp held by generations of Kinnesons, cross-generational secrets aching to get out, grand old buildings that can't be kept up, historical societies seeking to keep the doors open, meddlesome government officials, and innovators who raise suspicion.

I am loath to say more lest I spoil the delight of discovering Mosher's cranks, boosters, tragic figures, lovers, cantankerous men, strong women, heroes and heroines yourself. The tales unfold in non-linear fashion, which is, if you think about it, the way we actually learn history rather than how most of us read or write about it. Stories unfold like a cross between a dip into Jim Kinneson's newspaper back files and randomly recalled oral tales of people connected directly and indirectly by blood. A subtheme is the family stories one tells and those one shouldn't. Somewhere along the line Mosher tosses a curveball to the oft-repeated assertion that Vermont is the second whitest state in the Union.

I have spent time in the Kingdom and can attest that it is, as Mosher presented, a place that feels like a land unto itself. In Points North, Nature is a silent character and that too feels right, especially when one gazes at the sides of the mountains not shredded by ski resort trails, icy lakes stretching into Canada, or down valley roads too far from the beaten path for leaf peepers. There's bitter irony in that Mosher presents much of the Kingdom's uniqueness as a fading way of life just as he was about to exit it.

Rob Weir

* Former governor and U.S. Senator George Aiken (1892-1984) is credited with coining the phrase "Northeast Kingdom" in a 1949 speech.

Howard Frank Mosher's last book is a collection of short stories, all set in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom in a fictitious small town. The stories are interconnected because they center on the Kinneson Family over a period of a couple of centuries, during which family members are the focus of this community. As they interact with each other and their neighbors, we get a glimpse of the rural life Mosher loved so much. Whether newspaper editor, judge, psychiatrist, author, preacher, farmer, or homemaker, the characters exemplify the funny and poignant day-to-day situations behind any crossroads, yet they are larger-than life because of Mosher's affection for them and lovely writing.

Genre: Fiction (Adult)
Pub. Date: Jan. 23, 2018
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Upon his passing in January 2017, many readers mourned Howard Frank Mosher. Thank goodness his books are immortal and can be read and reread as often as we wish, allowing us to travel into the very real, strikingly beautiful, and remote part of Vermont known affectionately as The Northeast Kingdom (NEK), which is the setting of all Mosher’s works. We can also see his books on the big screen. Four of his books were made into movies: “Northern Borders,” “Disappearances,” “A Stranger in the Kingdom,” and “Where the Rivers Flow North.” In his last book, “Points North,” which was published posthumously, he secures his place among the best regional American writers in current times. In his obituary, The New York Times wrote, “Mr. Mosher’s fictional Kingdom County, Vt., became his New England version of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County.” (Kingdom County is fictional. It is written as a rural county on the Vermont/Canadian border. The NEK is also located on the Vermont/Canadian border and is very much a real county). I am lucky enough to spend a good part of the year in The Kingdom.

There are ten stories in “Points North,” all set in Kingdom Common, Kingdom County. They're mostly narrated by two brothers with the last name of Kinneson (the fictional family whom Mr. Mosher based on his own family). One brother is the editor of the local newspaper and the other is the local judge. They hunt, fish, and grow old together in the county where they were born. They have been going on an annual fishing trip since they were boys. At the age of 80, the elder brother can still lift a canoe and place it over his head. This feat is accomplished from a lifetime of hard work that is common in the NEK. The brothers debuted in an earlier novel by Mosher, “God’s Kingdom.” In “Points” the stories chronicle the intertwining histories of their family: natives, outcasts, bootleggers, abolitionists, farmers, and others who settled and stayed in this brutally rural area. The stories are not linear. They bounce back and forth in time (a prose I enjoy). In each tale, the reader learns more details about the characters.

The opening and title story, “Points North” is a touching tale of a man whose family were former slaves. He disowns his daughter, who yoked up with trash, but ends up raising her son, his grandson, who was dropped off at his doorstep when the boy was fourteen. They are already arguing before he even knows the boy’s name. The battle between them has begun. The teen is obstinate, just like him. And, he drives the kid nuts with stories of his granddaddy’s granddaddy. But every now and then he makes a dent in his grandson’s armor. Once while showing him how to mark the depths of a river damn he explains that his granddaddy was just a shaver (Kingdom speak for a boy) when the Klan came riding and killing through the town leaving a hundred people to burn in a church. The grandfather tells his grandson that he has always “suspicioned” that the dam was created to put out of sight the horror of what happened in that church.

In “Sisters” we get a good feel for the hardscrabble life in The Kingdom as well as a good dose of NEK humor. One sister talks nonstop to the other, who just happens to be dead. The sisters couldn’t be more unalike, besides obvious reasons, if they tried. One is sweet and virginal. While her wild, ornery sister feels the other is a prude. Once a couple of spooked drivers, with out-of-state plates, rudely ask the not-so-sweet sister, if they have stumbled themselves onto a scene from the chainsaw movies. She ignores the question, but tells them to be mindful of where they walk in case they put their foot on a rattlesnake. Of course, there were no rattlesnakes within a hundred miles of Kingdom County. The story is filled with the funny quirks of its characters. However, Mosher wasn't blind to the dark side of life in his beloved NEK. At age eleven, one of the girls drags their drunken dad home on a hand-drawn sled. She passes another drunken man who is about to have his way with the child.

The Kinneson brothers were still young men in “Lonely Harts.” The elder brother is married while the younger brother, at age 27, is not. This does not sit well with his sibling. Unbeknownst to him, his brother sends in a personal ad to the “Mephremagog Daily Express” (a real newspaper located in Newport, VT) to find him a gal signing the ad as Lonely Hearts. The younger likes all his dates, but they aren’t his beautiful high school sweetheart Frannie, who he hasn’t seen in ten years after she left to go to college in Canada. In the interim, the town is looking for a new doctor. (The next sentence is a spoiler alert). When they finally meet again, his sweetheart is now known as Dr. Frannie, a psychiatrist who doubles as a family physician. This is not as unusual as it sounds. (I once went to see a doctor in the Kingdom where the AA meetings were held by the doctor). She tells the younger brother, in a joking manner, that she is moving back to the Kingdom for patients since the area is a treasure chest of towns filled with inhabitants who have serious mental disorders. Why else would they live there? The love story in “Hearts” might be a bit too saccharine for my tastes, but heck, “all the world loves a lover.”

I might be a tad biased on Mosher’s works because I am drawn to the author for my love of the Kingdom and our home there. I think of the author whenever we pass a house in Orleans (which was the town of his first home in the Kingdom located minutes away from us) that looks suspiciously like the house pictured on the cover of his book “Stranger in the kingdom.” Or, the Orleans Fair which I go to every summer. At the age of 13, my 75-year old husband, snuck into the girlie tent or went into the oddity tent with the two-headed chicken. Not to mention, that one of my favorite places in the U.S. is “The Old Stone House Museum,” a once student dormitory found in Orleans County, VT. In 1836, the school was built by the headmaster, who was the first African-American to be American college-educated at Middlebury College, located in Middlebury, VT. So, maybe I am biased, though I really doubt it. I believe that he saved his best for last, as he wondered too. Shortly before his passing Mosher told the Vermont newspaper, “The Rutland Herald,” “I am happy to leave you all with the gift of what may be my best book in ‘Points North.”

I enjoyed this book. Learning about the hardships of living in Alaska was the best part of this book. I liked the ending, too.

In order for me to enjoy a short story, I can’t be left feeling that it isn’t enough. I mostly enjoy short stories when they are connected by characters and place . This book was everything I hoped it would be. Yet, taken in total, it didn't feel like short stories but rather a novel of this place and these people, the Kinnesons of Kingdom County, Vermont. I read God’s Kingdom and was so taken by the Kinneson family and Kingdom County and by Mosher's writing that I said I would definitely read more. Time has passed and many other books have gotten in the way so when I had the opportunity to get a copy of the very last book that he wrote before his death, I jumped at the chance . I was especially glad to have it since several characters were here again as was the same fabulous story telling.

This is about grandfathers and grandsons, brothers, sisters, fathers and sons, husbands and wives, lovers, slavery and abolition, the land. Ruth Kinneson said it best - "Still smiling, Ruth reached out and touched the brook trout on the tombstone, half expecting the carved fish to dart away from her hand. Family, she thought as she headed into the village. Fishing, hunting, baseball, the newspaper, the farm now growing back to woods - all came down to family. In the Kingdom, family was everything."

You might think that it would be confusing with the time lines out of sequence. On the contrary - every time I read one, there were revelations about these characters. Like pieces of a puzzle we are presented with the history of these people and this place. The opening story “Points North” a touching story of a former slave, a man who raises his grandson, a Kinneson. "Where is Don Quixote?”, Ezekiel Kinneson's story about a man and his land and yes windmills. “Good Sam Merryton” has not just a fantastic title but a fantastic feat by Sam. “Sisters” telling about Madge Kinneson’s marriage history made for an entertaining read and has a lovely ending. "Friendship Indiana" is about two brothers and I thought these were the quirkiest of the quirky characters found here until I read the next story "Kingdom of Heaven". There are several other stories. My favorites of which were "What Pliny Knew" and "The Songbirds of Vermont". The first bringing back inimitable Reverend Dr. Pliny Templeton who I loved from God's Kingdom and the latter, the last story in the collection, perhaps my very favorite with Ruth Kinneson, a lovely way to end the book, the last written words of this wonderful storyteller. Overall it's quirky, funny, sad, and uplifting. This time I really mean it. I have to read the rest of Howard Frank Mosher's books.

I received an advanced copy of this book from St. Martin's Press through NetGalley.

Set in the fictitious Kingdom County, a part of the northeastern corner of Vermont, the stories are filled with the many members of the Kinneson Family. They are ordinary men and women doing everyday things. A lawyer, an editor, a doctor, a sheriff, a mean tight-fisted entrepreneur, a gentle sweet-tempered handyman, a reverend, a huckster.

I loved Dr. Frannie who realized that the Kingdom was “a treasure chest of serious mental and emotional disorders” and James Kinneson who loved this silly young French girl. We only get snippets of them but it is enough to know that their relationship stays special as they age. We are treated to a broader knowledge of Charlie and James as the brother’s antics take up a portion of many of the stories. There is local legend and common sense. There is history. There is nature and nuisance plants which “Like the Kinnesons …was troublesome and enduring.””

Through the beautiful writing you always get the “sense of well-being that could be gained from going into the woods or out onto the remote ponds and river of the Kingdom”. Mosher’s writing fits the time and place and his characters become so real you feel as if you are part of the conversation. It is so sad that it has come to an end.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a copy of these wonderful stories.

In 1964, Mosher and his wife Phillis moved to the Northeast Kingdom in 1964, where he taught English at the local high school, and also where he would eventually write 13 books, including 2 memoirs. Four of those books went on to be made into movies: Northern Borders, Disappearances, A Stranger in the Kingdom, and Where the Rivers Flow North.

His characters are regular people, their life or work choices might differ from yours, some are farmers, or loggers, trappers, some are based on people he knew, or had met, that had shared their stories, and sometimes their stories were woven into his stories. Lives lived close to Nature, and in harmony with it. They are like many of those small town people in Elizabeth Strout’s novels, proud of living a simple, small, if demanding life in hardscrabble rural Vermont.

“What we found in the Northeast Kingdom was just a gold mine of stories that no writer had ever told before, and I pretty much dedicated my life to telling them.”

I’ve only recently read his “God’s Kingdom”, and I’m glad that I did, for many of those characters are revisited here. His writing shows his respect and love for the land and the people. I felt this so strongly, he pulled me into this world, and I was happy to stay. Having closed the last page of this, his final book, I am already feeling a bit homesick for this place and these people.

Shortly before his death on the 29th of January 2017 at the age of 74, Howard Frank Mosher spoke of this book, saying “I am happy to leave you all with the gift of what may be my best book in ‘Points North.’” Mosher outlived his mother by six days, her death at the age of 102.

It seems a daunting task to try and summarize someone else’s final words, thoughts put to paper. I can’t honestly separate the story from the man, when this was so clearly a way of life, a lifestyle he saw as fleeting. A town where everybody really does know your name, a place where most families have lived there for generation upon generation. Where life has changed, even here, but there is still a bit of the old ways that still remains. There are those who still remember them.

”In the end, stories and love were what you were left with.”

Before I had decided to read “God’s Kingdom,” when I was reading reviews about Howard Frank Mosher’s writing, I ran across a review written by author Jon Clinch for “God’s Kingdom.” It seems fitting to include it here.

“Vermont’s remote and lovely Northeast Kingdom existed before Mosher claimed it for his own, and with any luck it will exist long after we’re gone. That its history and culture will remain indelible is Mosher’s gift to posterity.” - Jon Clinch



Pub Date: 23 Jan 2018

Many thanks for the ARC provided by St. Martin’s Press

Points North, the posthumously published anthology, by Howard Frank Mosher was my introduction to Kingdom County, Vermont. The stories in this collection span many points in the history of Kingdom County with the Kinneson family as a common thread. I enjoyed all the stories, and I fell a little bit in love with Kingdom County. I look forward to reading the rest of Mr. Mosher's novels and getting to know Kingdom County and its people better.

We have many customers at the Jabberwocky who love Howard Mosher. Thank you for the advanced copy and the chance to let me tell others what a wonderful writer he is. This book is no exception. He will be missed.