13 hours Ago By Neil Hegarty
But one brother falls on the rocks, and seems set to drown – and as he struggles in the water, his thoughts run as rapidly as the river as he contemplates mortality: “Thad had a general idea, and it came down to particles. No matter on earth could ever be truly destroyed or created, only changed ..
. Where consciousness came from he wasn’t sure except that it in the end it was nothing more than a byproduct of the unique arrangement of molecules.” This dual consciousness – of the sublime and exalted nature of the universe, and of its utter dispassion – flows through Beartooth, Callan Wink’s spare and remarkable new novel.
If Wink’s previous title, August , was a coming-of-age story – the arrival in Montana of a Michigan teenager, and his reorientation in the world until he finds a place there in Big Sky country – then Beartooth can be seen as something of a corrective to possible complacency, and a reminder that finding one’s place and building a home are only the beginning of another and equally challenging story. Thad and his brother Hazen have recently lost their father; their mother has been long absent; they owe back taxes; and their house in the woods – deploying a recurrent image in the book – is in urgent need of a new roof. All of which makes them fair game for the “Scot” to dispatch them to Yellowstone, to engage in illegal activity.
[ Dog Run Moon by Callan Wink review: a gracefully written, moving debut Opens in new window ] A journey, then – but Beartooth has a much larger quest in its sights, to do with redemption and its possibilities: the extent to which these brothers can repair their shattered lives, and to reconstruct their damaged home and their sense of a possible better. False comforts appear, only to disappear: and it is to the credit of this remarkable novel that hope for the future is offered – though only for some, and in realistic measure. Neil Hegarty, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a novelist and biographer.
