This summer, Erin Balser is reading all 20 titles on Oprah’s Summer Reading List. The Summer of Oprah will be chronicled on Books@Torontoist every Monday and Thursday throughout July and August.
Reading Jon Clinch’s Kings of the Earth is like eating in a busy restaurant. The many voices ring together as a single chaotic noise, but if you’re patient and listen carefully you can break down the voices, listen to the individual stories, and understand how they weave together, turning that noise into a narrative.
Inspired by true events, Kings of the Earth tells the story of three brothers living a Grey Gardens-type life on a farm in upstate New York, working on their family dairy farm by day and sharing a bed by night. When one of them passes away in their sleep, a murder investigation ensues, upsetting the brothers’ filthy subsistence existence. The men are really, really disgusting (and the most poetic parts of the book come when Clinch describes their repulsiveness): their clothes caked in manure, their linens soaked in urine, the house never cleaned, the farm equipment rusty and ancient. On the rare occasions they head into town, atop their broken-down tractor, they repel people and evoke stares.
Yesterday, when I was headed to work, I ended up riding the streetcar with my new neighbour, Frank. He lives one house down, the house between us a decrepit unoccupied mess.
“So, you know about #10?” he asked.
“Not too much. Looks pretty run down to me.”
“You don’t know that half of it! Tree roots have invaded the basement, much of the frame is rotted and cracked, no running water….” He shuddered. “When we moved in, the man living there was quite a character. Mice and raccoons everywhere. Don’t think he ever went outside. Don’t know how he showered or ate. Disgusting. When it was for sale, the realtor placed a ‘Enter At Your Own Risk’ sign on the door.”
Clinch easily slips between people and decades to piece together the story of the brothers and the surrounding cast of characters—their lone sister, who escaped the squalour early, their compassionate neighbour who has watched out for the men their entire lives, the detective who feels guilty about pursuing a murder charge, and their nephew, who uses their ancient farm as a front for his grow-op—create a rich tapestry through which to better understand these men and their lifestyle.
That eccentric neighbour is gone now, selling his house in a bidding war early last year, and the poor souls who ended up with the place didn’t realize what they were getting into. The house looks untouched, rotting away. Who was this neighbour? Why did he choose to live this way? Why did the brothers of Kings of the Earth choose to live this way? Is it really a choice, or does something deeper alienate them from contemporary society and propel them to reject convention, charity, and cleanliness?
The questions surrounding these lifestyles are as fascinating as the murder investigation that unfolds in the book. The brothers are semi-literate and, let’s face it, not that smart, but there is so much more to their story than simply not knowing any better. There is family and their relationship to the farm, the land, and each other. It doesn’t really add up, but by the end, I developed a begrudging respect for their lifestyle and choices, even if thinking about the smell was enough to make me run to the bathroom.
Poverty and justice are two unbelievably complex concepts, and Clinch artfully tackles them, offering no answers but passing no judgment. He, unlike HBO’s Grey Gardens movie, doesn’t glorify their existence, but he doesn’t dismiss it either. He simply lets it sit on the pages, where it will sock you in unexpected ways and in unexpected places.
Like a streetcar ride with a new neighbour.
Illustration by Brian McLachlan/Torontoist
