October Light (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Gardner
- First Published: 1976
- Type of Plot: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: One week in October in the early 1970’s
- Setting: A farm outside Bennington, Vermont
- Principal Characters: James L. Page, Sally Page Abbott, Virginia (Ginny) Page Hicks, Lewis Hicks
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: 1970’s
- Locales: Bennington, VT
The Novel
An early section in Gardner’s novel describes the annual cycle of backbreaking labor for rural Vermonters. The passage concludes, “Now, in October, the farmwork was slackening, the drudgery had paid off. . . .” This is, however, an ironic observation: For seventy-two-year-old James Page and his eighty-year-old sister, Sally Page Abbott, the “harvest years” have brought no payoff. James, though honest, hardworking, and fiercely patriotic, can barely wrest a living from the family farm—where he has lost one son to a fall from the barn roof and another to...
[The entire page is 3234 words long]
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