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    An Elegy for September: A Novel
    An Elegy for September: A Novel
    An Elegy for September: A Novel
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    An Elegy for September: A Novel

    By John Nichols

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    He is fifty, a man of middle years with a weak heart and two failed marriages. Mourning the loss of the boundless energy he squandered as a young man, he is a creature of habit now, relying on daily patterns to pace himself, to conserve what is left. She is nineteen, young enough to be his daughter, full of the vitality of youth and fearless—or perhaps only blind to the dangers life brings. Spare and moving, An Elegy for September captures the turning point in the life of a man as he confronts his own mortality—and confronts truths about himself he never suspected. Featuring some of John Nichols’s best writing, An Elegy for September is a brief, poignant, and eloquent novel that renders an age-old story in a fresh and powerful form.

    “One of the finest things he has ever written.”—Los Angeles Times

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of New Mexico Press
    Release dateApr 1, 2014
    ISBN9780826354716
    An Elegy for September: A Novel
    Author

    John Nichols

    John Nichols (1940–2023) was the acclaimed author of the New Mexico trilogy. Beginning with the publication of The Milagro Beanfield War, which was adapted into a film by Robert Redford, the series of novels grew from regional stature to national appeal, from literary radicals to cult classics. Beloved for his compassionate, richly comic vision and admired for his insight into the cancer that accompanies unbridled progress, Nichols was also the author of a dozen novels and several works of nonfiction. He lived in northern New Mexico.

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    3.5/5

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    • 3/5
      I loved Nichols' first novel, The Sterile Cuckoo, forty-odd years ago, with its lovable couple, Pookie and Jerry, and the movie was great too, with that beautiful theme song, "Come Saturday Morning." In comparison, this one is just, well, kinda awful, with its odd mix of nature hikes and kinky sex between a fifty year-old writer and a nineteen year-old starstruck wannabe-writer. It just does not work and soon sinks to the sordid. The book was slightly reminiscent of Ed Abbey's early novel, BLACK SUN, but not half as good. It was a struggle to even finish AN ELEGY FOR SEPTEMBER, and it is a short novel. No more Nichols for me, I'm afraid. Not recommended. (Two and a half stars) - Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

    Book preview

    An Elegy for September - John Nichols

    cover.jpg

    An Elegy for September

    listtitle

    © 1992 by John Treadwell Nichols

    All rights reserved.

    University of New Mexico Press edition published 2014 by arrangement with the author.

    Printed in the United States of America

    19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5 6

    The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

    Nichols, John Treadwell, 1940–

    An elegy for September : a novel / John Nichols.

    pages ; cm

    ISBN 978-0-8263-5470-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8263-5471-6 (electronic)

    1. Love-hate relationships—Fiction. I. Title.

    PS3564.I274E34 2014

    813’.54—dc23

    2013041144

    Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to quote Casey Jones. Words by Robert Hunter. Copyright 1970 by Ice Nine Publishing Company, Inc.

    Cover design by Catherine Leonardo

    … not to know and love the tragedy

    of your own life, is not to know the

    joy of being here at all.

    —Walter Lowenfels

    One

    He parked the truck in front of a bulldozed mound closing off the old timber road, folded the topo map and fit it in his back pocket, dropped an apple and a few shells into the knapsack, placed three extra shells in his right front pocket, fitted a cap on his head, and began walking.

    He had been tempted to bring along the letter he’d picked up on the way out, but decided against it. No intrusions this afternoon. And anyway, as always with her, after a single quick reading, he almost knew it by heart.

    An ATV had been along the road, probably used by sheepherders farther up the canyon. He was disappointed by the grass it had crushed. More than anything, he wanted to feel entirely alone.

    Like all secondary roads in the area, this one had been blocked off to vehicular traffic for twenty years. The road led down to a small river where clusters of golden asters made bright both sides of the stream. Timbers from an old bridge had collapsed into the water. Three little brown trout scurried for cover as he balanced across the rotting vigas and headed uphill along a tiny feeder rivulet.

    Thunder rumbled, and it was clouding up down south. His road followed the water, climbing for almost two miles at a tolerable incline. On the steep slope to his left aspens were turning gold. On the right were large spruce trees. Grass en route reached almost to his knees.

    He traveled two miles in the canyon shadow. Many aspen leaves were floating down, yet the air remained very quiet. When lightning lit up the sky, he flinched, but it was still far away. Nevertheless, he pointed the L. C. Smith straight down at his right side, hoping it would be less of an attraction to errant electricity.

    The miniature stream burbled between large mossy rocks and moss-covered rotten logs and vegetation, which included monkshood, some alders and box elders, and swatches of thimbleberry, much of it golden already and sporting red raspberry-like fruits.

    Up higher it began to sprinkle. He crossed the creek, rousing a water ouzel, which seemed unafraid and only fluttered on to the next pool. A sweet little brook, he thought, but too small for trout. The entire sky was now overcast, thunder bursting closer each time. He cringed but continued walking. Surrounded by so many trees, how could a single strand of fire pick him out?

    He assumed, given his heart, that if hit he would surely die, and hoped it would be quick. He didn’t want to lie on the ground for a long time, in excruciating pain, with his hair and clothing aflame.

    Then he laughed out loud. "Go for it, feel sorry for yourself, come on—let’s see you really suffer!"

    He reached a plateau where the white clover that grouse liked grew everywhere. Also kinnikinnick, another of their favorite foods. Old logging roads crisscrossed in all directions among stands of spruce, Douglas fir, and young aspens. Little seeps and larger springs made the grass spongy, almost swampy in places.

    Finally the rumble overhead became so persistent, and the fine rain so chilling, he sought refuge up a slope in an alcove created by evergreens, scrub oak, and several large aspens. For fifteen minutes he crouched there in hiding from wind, thunder, and lightning, barely getting wet. He faced downhill toward the road, where many wheat-colored strands of grass swayed in the erratic gusts. Yellow aspen leaves descended in flurries time and again, blasted off their limbs by loud outbursts of noisy air.

    His safe haven was comfortable. He noticed girdles of moss at the base of aspen and spruce alike. Also, kinnikinnick, some thimbleberry, and the delicate heart-shaped leaves of Canadian violets. Trees that had fallen nearby were covered by moss and leaves, engorged by the forest. He wondered how long the process had taken.

    While the rain continued, he took his pulse, checking out the heartbeat. Everything seemed okay inside, no trace of fibrillation.

    Dearest Mister _____, her initial fan letter had begun almost three months ago. She claimed to love him because his books were mighty special. As always he had written back politely, urging caution. But that didn’t stop her at all. Letters began rolling in, often twice a week. In them she poured her heart out. At first, he had answered sparely, in subdued tones, intrigued but wary. She was only a junior in college, the same age as his daughter. Yet she was articulate, funny, sexy, obnoxious—mercurial. Furthermore, she had applied for, and received, a three-week writing residency at the Rhinehart Center, a local arts foundation. So they were destined to meet.

    D-Day is September FOURTH! she had announced two months ago.

    September is my vacation, he wrote back, and I desperately need the break.

    I’ll give you a break, came her immediate answer. "I’ll fuck your socks off! You’ll never know what hit you! We can fly together!"

    "Fly? he scoffed, eager to avoid the trap. I can hardly walk. I’m sick, I got no energy, my heart is a mess, I’m in the middle of a divorce, I’m broke, I live in a two-room apartment the size of an orange crate, I’ve been working three years on a book that refuses to cooperate, and I’m terrified of women."

    She replied, Obviously, you need me. I’m young and smart and sexy and funny and talented!

    Her enthusiasm made him sad, his response to it even more so. He typed, "I’m sorry, but I am about to divorce a woman who is young and smart and funny and sexy and talented. And I have no intention of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. I’m tired."

    So in today’s mail, finally, had arrived a picture. Nothing fancy. She wore shorts, a baggy sweater, and white sneakers. The pose, on a porch railing, was mockingly

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