Whisper Hollow by Chris Cander

Whisper Hollow

by Chris Cander

Other Press, 2015

ISBN: 978-1590517116

400 p.p.

Sometimes there are stories that sprint right out of the gate and go the distance at high speed for the duration of the novel. Other times they begin as a spark, building tension as a slow gas leak would, finally exploding into several avenues alight in flames, as in the story of Whisper Hollow by Chris Cander. The novel is divided, with a tragic coal-mine disaster in Verra, West Virginia, a coal-mining community of immigrants, marking the cataclysmic event between the two parts. Like any classic small town, it’s rife with half-truths. A place where everybody knows your business, but none of your secrets.

The first half of the book begins in 1916, and focuses on 4 intertwined characters: Giovanni (John), the school’s star baseball player who dreams of being an architect; Myrthen, devoted to leading a pious life in the hopes of becoming a nun; Alta, caretaker of her father after her mother’s death; and Walter, a quiet and simple man, beginning life as a coal-miner.

A series of (unfortunate) events throw these characters into the lives they seemed destined to live. Myrthen obsesses over joining the Carmelite nuns as the guilt of contributing to her twin sister Ruth’s death mere days before their 6th birthday weighs heavily on her conscious. Her quiet and mysterious air attracts John and they succumb to their adolescent desire, only to be discovered by Myrthen’s mother who comes home early from an errand. To save the families of embarassment, their parents force the teenagers to get married, a rushed ceremony in order to avenge their sin. Myrthen protests the wedding and begrudges John every single day thereafter, as we witness the harshness of her self-imposed punishment on their very wedding night as she assumes the role of thorned Christ:

[Myrthen] lifted her head and placed the [wedding] wreath around it, then let her head fall back against the pillow. She pulled the veil down over her face, and closed her eyes… Back and forth, the weight of sin ruthlessly crushed crushed crushed her into the bed and soon the thorns dug into her temples and she began to bleed.

In the meantime, Alta’s hopes of catching John’s attention are crushed when her father sets her up to date Walter, his co-worker in the mines. An uninspiring but good man, Walter has nothing to offer Alta save for stability and kindness. The two marry and live simply, day in, day out, not quite in love and with a lack of passion, but as respectful co-parents.

As Myrthen’s resentment of John grows (she blames him for ruining her chances at the novitiate), he decides to join the military and escape his dreaded homelife, trading it in for WWII. While he’s gone, Myrthen applies for candidacy with The Carmel of St. Isabel, only to be turned away when it’s discovered that she’s still married. In a frantic attempt to rid herself of John and her obligation, she applies for an annulment of marriage, then finds herself on a slippery slope of deceit and desperation, culminating in a tragedy of epic proportions.

The second half of the book begins fourteen years after the tragedy, in 1964, where we meet Lidia and Danny, newly dating and hopeful for the future. Lidia encounters her own hardships, having to make an extremely difficult choice between her brother’s offense and the man she intends to marry. Burdened with her own secrets, she must forge ahead and keep her life with Danny—and their mysterious son Gabriel, whom the townspeople have deemed either a prophet or the Devil himself—glued together with love and strength and purpose. Alta joins us again, an older woman now, stricken with grief and regrets and things left unsaid, "She thought of… the life she’d led and the loves she’d buried in Verra, the loneliness of being on her own in the woods, surrounded by asparagus and memories."

It’s this half of the book that Alta, Myrthen, and Lidia collide, three very different women contending with their very own sets of obstacles. It seems as if their secrets will burst at the seams and spill over into the town, unearthing long-buried truths and lies, threatening to change the course of other people’s lives in Verra, as well as their own.

What if the truth is something you don’t want shared? What if the truth would change everybody’s thinking about what’s done and gone? People come to terms with things, then maybe somebody comes along and tells them something different and all of a sudden they have to change their view?... There’s responsibility in that. That’s asking a lot. Of everybody.

This is a book that will leave you grappling with your emotions. It has all the ingredients of an honest, gritty look at authentic life, the struggles that come with the cards we’re dealt, and the hushed—and sometimes clamorous—internal battles people face. While certain secrets never end up seeing the light, there is a sense of satisfaction at the end of the novel that evil will have to grapple with itself.

***

Chris Cander is a novelist, children’s book author, screenplay writer, and teacher for Houston-based Writers in the Schools. Her novel 11 Stories was included in Kirkus’s best indie general fiction of 2013. Her most recent novel is Whisper Hollow, published by Other Press.

(Bio from author's website).