Summary: Cole Callahan, a successful home restorer, travels from his home in Portland back to his hometown in East Granby, Connecticut. He's convinced himself he is just there for five days to observe the dismantling of an old tobacco shed. He wants to use the wood for an addition onto his own house in Portland.

Cole hasn't been back to Granby since his father murdered his mother in one of his frequent rages. As Cole checks out his old home, a disintegrating Colonial, he hears piano music coming from inside the house. He is shocked to discover his father, now out of prison, living there. The home, perpetually under reconstruction during his childhood, is in deplorable condition. He soon discovers that his father is also disintegrating into senility.

Meanwhile, Cole's marriage is falling apart and his son, Daniel, is in danger of being expelled from school for breaking the law while protesting against food waste. Cole decides that the best thing for Daniel would be a summer of working in the tobacco fields, like he did as a boy. But as the summer progresses and he is forced to take a good hard look at his family's history, he learns lessons not only from the men in his past, but also from the one of his future--his son.

Comments: Cole narrates this story in both the present and in large memory chunks of the past. As he describes his father's rage and violence, he also says he once believed that all men beat their wives, based on what he saw in his own and his friends' families. And that is the core of this novel--the cycle of violence that is passed down from generation to generation.

Scribner is a good writer, but his was not an easy novel to read emotionally. Not only are the men implicated but the women as well--by their expectations of what it means to "be a man" as well as by their silence. I was a victim of domestic violence in my first marriage and witnessed the effects of just the kind of multi-generational behavior patterns he describes in Old Newgate Road. But this is not a completely gloomy book. Lessons are learned -- and in at least in Daniel, there is hope for the future.

I'm not sure who to recommend this book to -- maybe book clubs who want something meatier than the usual fluffy female fare (this book is chock full of discussion topics).

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

General Fiction, Literary Fiction, Realistic Fiction

Published by Knopf on January 8, 2019

Cole remodels homes in the Pacific Northwest, often using chestnut from the east coast. After thirty years, Cole is back in Connecticut, where he plans to dismantle a tobacco barn. He grew up on Old Newgate Road in East Granby where his childhood was tragic. He’s kept it locked away, but an unexpected family reunion threatens to unlock the gates of memory. A true memory, not the version of the truth that he has carefully constructed and reshaped and lived with for so many years.

In the present, Cole is separated from an unfaithful wife who wants more steam in the bedroom than Cole can generate. He’s having issues with his rebellious son Daniel, who is in the custody of his wife back in Portland — rebellious because he commits misdemeanors to save the world from greedy corporations — but Cole’s trip to East Granby diverts his attention from pressing problems at home. The last Cole knew, his father was in prison. Now he’s back in the family home, suffering from dementia.

Cole’s idea is to bring Daniel to East Granby where he can work on a tobacco farm and help care for Cole’s father — in other words, teach Daniel discipline by making his life hell. Daniel is the novel’s voice of honesty, a voice that speaks unpleasant truths to his father as the story nears its end.

Meanwhile, Cole tries to run his business and salvage his marriage while he’s on a different coast, an effort that proves to be untenable. It doesn’t help that his wife has found a therapist to validate her infidelity.

Flashbacks acquaint the reader with Cole’s childhood, his brother and sister, the marathon-obsessed uncle and unhappy aunt with whom he lived for a while in high school, and the alcoholic grandmother with whom he stayed before moving to the west coast. All have been touched by the same tragedy; each has reacted in a different way.

“The past only has the meaning we give it in the present,” one of the characters observes. Letting go of the past — or not — is the novel’s main theme, coupled with the theme of forgiveness. Cole unpacks a room full of guilt during the novel while victims of his transgressions are astonished that he even remembers the things for which he blames himself.

At the same time, Cole wonders just how far the apple has fallen from the tree. He has difficulty letting go of rage, even at small insults he suffered long ago. Is he more like his father than he is willing to admit? Is he capable of forgiving his father? Should he? And how will Daniel turn out? Does he have his grandfather’s lack of self-control? The answer to the last question comes in a dramatic scene near the novel’s end that seems to reprise an incident from Cole’s past.

Old Newgate Road is a powerful family drama, but the story avoids the melodrama that afflicts so many books about dysfunctional families. Its power derives from its honest depiction of violence against women and from the impact of violence not just on its female victims but on male family members who witness it, whether they choose to confront or deny it.

The story also illustrates the perils of raising children without first resolving long-standing anxieties and issues of self-doubt. As much as Cole worries about how Daniel will grow up, by the end of the novel Cole understands that he’s the one who needs to mature. Sometimes fathers have more to learn from sons than sons can learn from fathers. That realization gives both Cole and the reader hope that it is never too late to put aside the past and to focus on the present.

A dramatic ending that follows the dramatic moments that precedeS it brings the story full circle while suggesting how the lives of the primary characters might turn out. Purposeful prose, convincing characters, and a strong story make Old Newgate Road a novel that will linger in the reader’s memory.

RECOMMENDED

I fucking love this book. I received an advance reader’s copy free courtesy of Net Galley and Doubleday, and I am late with my review, but it’s not too late for you. This dark, brooding tale of family secrets that intertwine with the present is both a literary gem and a deeply absorbing read. It’s for sale now.

Cole owns a construction business in the Pacific Northwest, but he returns to his childhood home on a mission to purchase some wood, a hard-to-find variety of chestnut. He hasn’t been back in thirty years, but now he is mature and ready to face the old house, or so he thinks. It’s the first time he’s been to his family’s Connecticut home since it happened. The family’s historical colonial home is located on Old Newgate Road, which leads to Old Newgate Prison; the way that he recalls that his parents posed and made much of this place and then the way that they treated each other and their children are juxtaposed in a way that I find absolutely believable.

There is a host of ominous foreshadowing, and the events of the past are revealed a layer at a time, like an onion, and the way Scribner uses them in developing his protagonist is brilliant. Each time that I think I see something in Cole’s behavior that doesn’t make sense, it comes up later and turns out to be an intentionally included inconsistency related to the character’s inner struggle. And right now I feel as if I am making this thing sound so dull—struggle, development, blah blah blah—but I am not providing specific information the way I ordinarily would because it would be a disservice to even reveal what we are told at the ten percent mark, or the twenty.

I read a few negative early reviews, and I suspect these are due to the unfortunate tendency to overuse specialized terms used mostly by architects and builders. Perhaps the aim was to make us believe that Cole knows his field, or maybe it’s a part of the setting. One way or the other, the author has gotten carried away with it, but the reader that soldiers through that junk at the outset can expect to see much less of it during the great majority of the book. I read it digitally and occasionally ran a search as I was reading, but if any of these terms is useful in understanding the book, then I am too shallow to see it. You can safely skip over them if you want to do so, and you will be none the poorer for it.

The best lines of the story go to Cole’s adolescent son, Daniel, a social justice warrior who gets into trouble at school when he pushes boundaries; Cole brings him to Connecticut to work the fields as he himself did in his teens, and this is when the story starts to hop. I spent my career teaching adolescents, and over the years I had five of them at home. If there were a weak point in Scribner’s construction of Daniel, I would see it (as several other unfortunate authors can attest.) Daniel is bright, insightful, and rebellious, and everything he says and everything he does builds a credible character. By the halfway mark, my notes are written to the protagonist rather than to myself, the publisher or the author; I’m watching this kid and telling Cole to listen to him. Daniel is almost a prophet, and he’s almost a one person Greek chorus, but he is still always, always a kid, impulsive, full of passion, and unafraid to say what he sees, what he thinks, and what he knows. If I were to make a short list of my favorite fictional teenagers, Daniel would be on it.

That being said, this story calls for at least a high school literacy level, even if you skip the architectural and woodworking terms. Because of the many memories that flood in when Cole returns home, I suspect that those of us that came of age in the 1970s (give or take) may enjoy it most; however, for younger readers it may have a bit of a noir flavor.

Highly recommended.

This was one of those books I really had to push myself to finish. At many points I thought maybe I should DNF it, but something kept telling me to power through. I love Scribner's writing style. He is somehow both concise and descriptive in the way he presents his environment. However, this novel did not leave any sort of impact on me. I imagine I will look back on it and think, "I know I read this novel, but I just can't remember anything about it."

Old Newgate Road tells the story of Cole Callahan, a wood worker who returns to his childhood home for some material to use in his construction business. He has not been back in thirty years, not since the tragedy that tore his family apart. What is supposed to be a quick trip quickly turns much more complicated. He discovers his father is currently residing in the home and is suffering from dementia. He finds his father needed a great deal of care and has no one to turn to. On top of this, his 15 year old son Daniel is getting into trouble, and as a way to keep him out of trouble, he brings him up to Newgate Road. As the novel progresses, time flips back and forth between past and present, and we see all the demons Cole has attempted to bury.

A large part of why I struggled with this novel is because the construction and woodworking angle could not hold my interest. Someone with more experience in that business I'm certain will enjoy it much more. I also had a difficult time connecting to any of the characters and found the timeline to be a bit choppy. I LOVE the cover, but it did lead me to believe the novel would be a bit darker than it was.

If Daniel had a larger part in the novel I also think I would have liked it more. He gets into trouble because he is always trying to do the right thing and refuses to accept a broken system. He gets arrested because he breaks into a Safeway dumpster in order give the food waste to people who need it.

This may not have been the book for me, but I think it is still very well written and will be better received among people who can connect with the characters and atmosphere.

'Secrets. He spoke of that night to almost no one for ten years, as if he’d just jumped town and what happened here, his entire childhood, didn’t stow away with him.'

Cole has returned to his hometown of East Granby, Connecticut. “It’s taken him nearly thirty years to come back…” in search of wood for his construction business, wood of superb quality, chestnut. Being his busiest season the return isn’t meant to last longer than a few days, somehow he stays longer. The only piece of the past he wants are what he can take in his flatbed, the wood. As soon as he arrives, he can hear echoes of his mother and her beautiful French, soon remembering her dreams of life in France, but to come the memories of the brutal fights, of the bruises, the years of abuse before his father stole her last breath. Remembering the rages that would move through his father, he feels disgust at any resemblance of brooding or anger he ever expressed when he was with Niki, his wife. Phil, his father, is as gruff as ever, sixteen years out of prison for murdering Cole’s mother, his mind is deteriorating with signs of dementia and Cole is surprised to find him living in their old home. One moment he is present, aware, the next he doesn’t know who his own son is. Trouble is brewing back home in Oregon with his son Daniel whose just been arrested, his social justice ideas hard not recognize as coming for an admirable place but no less criminal according to the law. Cole’s plan is to get his son working a job in tobacco, just like he did when he was a teenager. His son sees East Granby as ‘the sticks’, tobacco representing all the wealthy types he hates, though interested in the grandfather he is finally meeting who is teaching him how to make crepes. His father’s childhood finally open to him. Daniel is much wiser at times than his dad, seeing that not everything can be easily fixed, that it takes action, of course action is why Daniel is always getting himself in trouble. Then there is Liz, his first love back in his life again and the painful secrets she kept are finally being released too. Instead of a hot affair you expect from such novels, it brings to Cole’s mind all the ways he has failed his marriage and his wife Niki. For me, this makes the novel far more believable, that when the two come together it isn’t to salivate and pant over their old loves as if the past 30 years haven’t happened.

Liz brings up all the spoiled past tied up with her brother Kirk, someone in his youth Cole failed to confront. Much like being unable to stand up to his father, failing to stop his mother’s murder, he still carries guilt of failing Liz. It’s hard to even fathom giving a damn about the father who murdered your mother, but it’s much too late to punish him because his father is slipping in and out of the past and present, confused. Cole has carried everything with him and allowed it, despite his best efforts of avoiding the traps of the past, to affect his family. Returning is to East Granby is a confrontation Cole never wanted, but he gets it all the same. Famous for mirroring his mother’s beliefs, that each time is ‘the last time’, he has embraced avoidance in his own life much the same. Kirk’s son LK (Little Kirk) becomes friends with Daniel but as things sour, the old Kirk proves he is still the same bully he always was.

Do we let tragic events define us? Sometimes they do despite our best efforts. Maybe if he can work through the past, get his father sorted out he can move forward and have a chance again in his marriage with Niki? Be the father his son needs. His father still surprises him, and not all of it terrible. This is an exploration on abuse and how the past haunts us until we are able to face the dark monsters, in others and ourselves.

Out today!

Knopf

Doubleday Publishing

How do you forgive the unforgivable? That's the central question of this book from Keith Schribner.

Cole Callahan returns to his hometown after 30 years. He's lived with hurt and anger for years, after being a witness to domestic violence as a child. Once he arrives at home, he finds his father living in their old, dilapidated house, in the throws of dementia.

While the story is there - this book felt a bit muddled and cloudy. Timelines switched and some of the characters lacked development. Still, the writing is good and I'm sure this story will resonate with many.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Cole Callahan is returning to his home town after thirty years. He needs some chestnut wood from an old tobacco shed they’re tearing down there to use in his home restoration business. He hasn’t been back since his father killed his mother in an angry rage. When he stops by the old house, he couldn’t be more surprised to find his elderly father living there. His father, Phil, has been released from prison and has returned home. Phil is showing signs of dementia so Cole feels obligated to stay and help him out for a while. He’s also avoiding some problems at home. He and his wife, Nikki, have separated and his son, Daniel, has become a dedicated freegan but keeps running into problems with school and the police due to his high principles.

This is a very dark, deep, layered book about abuse in a dysfunctional family and how that abuse continued to work its evil in the lives of those who had previously endured it. There’s a lot going on in the plotline of this book but it never gets confusing or muddled. The only reason why I’m not giving this one 5 stars is that I had quite a bit of trouble understanding the touching scenes between Cole and his father and the affection and care he sometimes showed his father. This is the man who killed his mother and who made his children’s lives miserable before that. These scenes seemed to conflict with other things that were said in the book, how much Cole hated his father and never got over the death of his mother. But I guess family is family, plus Cole was dealing with so much guilt that he wasn’t able to save his mother, which would cause conflicting feelings in him.

Memorable story of a haunted family. Recommended.

Cole, a middle-aged contractor living in Portland, Oregon, takes a trip to Connecticut, where he grew up, to purchase building materials for his current project. While there he visits his childhood house, which he hasn’t returned to since leaving it thirty years ago, and finds his estranged father, recently released from jail and struggling with dementia. Cole decides to stay with his father to move him to a care facility and fix up the old house. While there, he confronts the tragic events that put his father in jail thirty years ago and sent Cole’s childhood off the rails. I found this a well written novel about a man dealing with his past, but what I found most valuable was the exploration of masculinity, and how the image of masculinity is shaped by and spreads within a culture and is handed down through the generations. Ultimately, grappling with masculinity underlies much of what Cole delves into in his past, and the struggle helps him decide what type of masculinity he wants to pass on to his son.