Nickel Mountain (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Gardner
- First Published: 1973
- Type of Plot: Pastoral realism
- Time of Work: From December, 1954, to the summer of 1960
- Setting: The farming country in the Catskills of upstate New York
- Principal Characters: Henry Soames, Calliope (Callie) Soames (née Wells), George Loomis, Willard Freund, Simon Bale
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: 1950’s
- Locales: New York
The Novel
Nickel Mountain is a story of moral renovation. Gardner’s mildly ironic opening sentence announces the novel’s preoccupation with the spiritual life of its central figure: “In December, 1954, Henry Soames would hardly have said his life was just beginning.” Indeed, when the novel begins, Henry, grossly overweight and already the victim of one heart attack, is close to a nervous breakdown. Both afraid of and attracted to the storms that whip the snow outside the Stop-Off, his diner at the foot of Nickel Mountain in rural upstate New York, Henry is...
[The entire page is 2770 words long]
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