"I had a sudden terrible fleeting illusion that all great men were really stuffing underneath and that all great, brave faces were only wax for Time to melt."
— Dan Cresap, The Golden Sickle
— Dan Cresap, The Golden Sickle
Orphan Dan Cresap is in for the night of his life. Sleeping in the loft of the Golden Sickle, a tavern in post-Revolutionary War Virginia, he is awakened by his dead father's companion and then gifted a strange inheritance: a ring, a string, and a scribbled verse. They are clues to the treasure his father stole, killed for, and hid somewhere before hanging for the crime. Out of the night on the companion's coattails, skulking into the Golden Sickle comes a vengeful dwarf creature, Elisha, who wants the treasure and to kill the son of Jim Cresap personally. Dan must choose to run or followhis father's clues.
This coming-of-age adventure yarn felt like a nightmarish Treasure Island. The autumnal early-America landscape with its spooky woods and uncharted rivers are cast with a band of curious allies and villains: a British ex-soldier, half-frozen Indians, a devious wax-sculptor, perceptive blind girl, and deadly she-pirate. Grubb draws it all brilliantly with blunt, shiny prose that I've come to love: "He puffed a spell...stared at her in the fireshine...and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck like a pup." This is the third novel of Grubb's that I've had the pleasure of tracking down. His storytelling powers seem fit for "a time as lost and gone as this one would be," to use his character Dan Cresap's own summation toward the dark journey's end. Best enjoyed fireside during a thunderstorm with the window cracked. [JG]
This coming-of-age adventure yarn felt like a nightmarish Treasure Island. The autumnal early-America landscape with its spooky woods and uncharted rivers are cast with a band of curious allies and villains: a British ex-soldier, half-frozen Indians, a devious wax-sculptor, perceptive blind girl, and deadly she-pirate. Grubb draws it all brilliantly with blunt, shiny prose that I've come to love: "He puffed a spell...stared at her in the fireshine...and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck like a pup." This is the third novel of Grubb's that I've had the pleasure of tracking down. His storytelling powers seem fit for "a time as lost and gone as this one would be," to use his character Dan Cresap's own summation toward the dark journey's end. Best enjoyed fireside during a thunderstorm with the window cracked. [JG]
Davis Grubb (left) with actor Robert Mitchum (right) who played Preacher in the adaption of "The Night of the Hunter"
WHO WAS DAVIS GRUBB?
Davis Grubb (1919-1980) is best known for his first novel The Night of the Hunter (1953), a dark fairy tale set in the Depression-era West Virginia. (It's one of my favorite novels of all time.) Two years later it was adapted for the screen by actor Charles Laughton's first and only directorial project, which stars Robert Mitchum as Preacher.
Davis Grubb went on to write nine other novels and three short story collections, most of which take place in small midwest towns similar to his home of Moundsville, West Virginia. "My earliest literary influences were the tales of the old men in my river town," Grubb claimed, citing the 200-year-lineage of his family in the Ohio Valley, but many of his stories also include fantastical and mystical elements, matched with a uniquely lyrical style. I've read A Tree Full of Stars, Twelve Tales of Suspense, and The Nighter of the Hunter now, and am looking forward in particular to reading his second novel, A Dream of Kings, as it follows a young boy's experience of the American Civil War.
Davis Grubb went on to write nine other novels and three short story collections, most of which take place in small midwest towns similar to his home of Moundsville, West Virginia. "My earliest literary influences were the tales of the old men in my river town," Grubb claimed, citing the 200-year-lineage of his family in the Ohio Valley, but many of his stories also include fantastical and mystical elements, matched with a uniquely lyrical style. I've read A Tree Full of Stars, Twelve Tales of Suspense, and The Nighter of the Hunter now, and am looking forward in particular to reading his second novel, A Dream of Kings, as it follows a young boy's experience of the American Civil War.
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 A TREE FULL OF STARS Davis Grubb  THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY Michael Chabon |  THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER Davis Grubb  ZORRO Isabel Allende |
