A Place in Mind by Sydney Lea

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
“Mystery that I observe—and make, like anyone. There are certain things, it seems from birth, that stick in the mind as signs from the heart of truth, and you attach them to what you call the self.

“The self I’ve invented has always lived here, at McLean.

“My…story is of friendship, and a place”

This first-person story is set in the fictional, backwoods town of McLean, Massachusetts in the early 1960’s. The narrator, Brant Healey, is a wealthy Bostonian who first arrives in McLean in the early 1920’s shortly after earning his PhD in modern literature. He befriends a local, Louis McLean, on that trip when he sees Louis (just a boy—20 years younger than Brant) battle a large salmon.

Brant returns to McLean each summer to fish, and some falls and winters to hunt. Louis acts as his guide and takes care of the small cabin Brant buys. About ten years after their first meeting, Brant asks Louis to be his full-time caretaker in McLean. This becomes Louis’ main employment. The story is told as Brant looks back over their 40 years of friendship.

Nearly as important as Louis’ friendship is to Brant, is the setting. Brant never really feels at home in Boston, where he lives alone nine months a year working as a professor. He therefore spends every summer in McLean. Louis and Brant are free to roam the rivers, lakes and woods in pursuit of fish and fowl.

The two men are from very different backgrounds: Brant is a rich intellectual from the city and Louis a poor, simple man from the country.

As the story is being told, Louis is 50 and Brant is 70: this becomes a story of aging and friendship. Through the 40 years Brant reminisces on, there are stories of love and lust, life and loss. What should have been, what could have been and what would never be. It’s about growing old and it’s about place.

“And all summer long, I could swear, if the wind picked up from the right quarter, you could smell fish in the air. Then, in the plane, we’d look down on where it all was and get the lay of it from up there, though it always seems wrong. It flattens out into a map, all the felt things out of reach except in mind and memory. There’s a wrench in that or in any departure from a place well loved: no matter how close you stick by it, you’re always going away.”

When I read a piece of fiction as a story only, I can whip through a book fairly quickly. Some stories are meant to be read slowly. Mainly a poet, Lea’s book is filled with a poet’s cadence and insight. A Place in Mind is most enjoyable to read and savor as a fine piece of writing, not just a story.

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