Page 32: Short Takes on Five Vermont Books

Seven Days writers can’t possibly read, much less review, all the books that arrive in a steady stream by post, email and telepathic AirDrop. Actually, please stop sending us books by telepathic AirDrop. Our psychic systems are currently overloaded. We’d prefer to conserve our energy for other things, such as introducing you to a handful of books by Vermont authors by quoting a single representative sentence from page 32.

Tao of Snow: Essays From Dawn Land

Michael Caldwell, Bloated Toe Publishing, 208 pages. $20.

I was ten when Dad dropped out of sight…

Michael Caldwell of North Wolcott is a maple sugar maker, retired Congregational minister, backcountry skier, canoeist, marathon runner, restorative justice advocate, fly fisher and deer hunter, all touchpoints in this book of essays. Caldwell’s writing has the vigor and candor of letters from a lifelong friend.

All 17 pieces in this compact volume, perfectly sized to carry in a back pocket or fanny pack, are feistily joyful. Some aren’t as successful as essays — they’re less shapely or complete — but many are exacting and insightful, especially “Two Below Honey,” “What Is Sex For,” “Wedding from Heaven” and “Rapid Recovery.” Particularly moving are the portraits of longtime comrades and memorable descriptions of specific locations — wintry trails in Québec’s Chic-Choc Mountains and on New Hampshire’s Moosilauke and white water rivers in northern Maine. Caldwell reminds us that the history of people and places is carried by those who have loved them.

— Jim Schley

Ambition: The Remarkable Family of Ethan Allen

Glenn Fay Jr., Onion River Press, 207 pages. $24.99.

Mary was assertive and tried to curb Ethan’s sometimes reckless behavior.

Swashbuckling military hero. Tough guy who bit iron nails in half and killed an attacking catamount with his bare hands. Overrated leader of the Green Mountain Boys. Narcissistic, thuggish rogue.

These are some of the portraits that biographers have painted of Ethan Allen. Glenn Fay Jr., a seventh-generation Vermonter and descendant of one of the Green Mountain Boys, sought out letters, legal documents and other primary sources to dispel folklore and build an objective account of one of Vermont’s most famous early residents. Rather than focus solely on Allen’s military life, Fay places him in the context of his family. In addition to well-known Ethan, the oldest, and Ira, the youngest, the Allen siblings include Heman, Lydia, Heber, Levi, Lucy and Zimri. Fay sketches short biographies of each, explores family dynamics across generations and presents the hardships of frontier living.

Whether he deserves to be lauded, criticized or both, Allen — along with his family and compatriots — helped take Vermont from disputed territory to independent republic to statehood.

— Mary Ann Lickteig

Rescuing Capitalism: Vermont Shows a Way

Will Patten, Back to Basics Media, 214 pages. $18.

In a corrupted political system politicians commandeer the economy to enrich themselves and preserve power.

Will Patten has a plan to save America. In the debut book from the retired Ben & Jerry’s executive, he argues that four decades ago, while the country began its descent into a supply-side economic system that enriched unregulated corporate robber barons, Vermont didn’t take the bait. Patten believes the Green Mountain State’s dedication to what he describes as a “fractious balance between public and private interests” has allowed Vermont to thrive. If all Americans could apply these tenets to the national economy, Patten asserts, we could fix 40 years of shady regulations and reverse the onset of oligarchy without destroying capitalism.

The 2024 Rich States, Poor States report has ranked Vermont at 49th for overall economic outlook, so the idea that other states might look to us as a blueprint seems dubious at best. Patten has a long career of business success, so perhaps he’s on to something. But some readers might balk at the notion of capitalism being able to fix capitalism.

— Chris Farnsworth

The Spoils

Colin Thompson, Onion River Press, 264 pages. $18.99.

It wasn’t a proper mohawk, but some sort of Zippy-the Pinhead front-hawk.

Ryan Wilson is sizing up “Cutty” Cuthbert, fellow coach of a middle school boy’s lacrosse team in a ritzy neighborhood of Brentwood, Calif. Wilson, 31, took the coaching gig even as he’s convinced it’s beneath him. Struggling and broke, the wannabe LA screenwriter vacillates between cocksure condescension and booze-fueled self-abuse because his big-screen aspirations have thus far failed to materialize.

That is, until he meets Camilla Emerson Tourney, stepmom to one of his players and wife of his Hollywood hero, blockbuster writer/director Buck Tourney. Camilla is wrestling with her own angst, including a lackluster marriage and a privileged but boring existence. With cinematic predictability, their chemistry is instant and intense. But is she just slumming it? And is he just using her to get a script optioned?

The Spoils is the debut novel by Shelburne native Colin Thompson, who’s written and directed three feature films. Clearly well versed in both blood sports — lacrosse and Hollywood suck-uppery — he writes prose reminiscent of another Thompson: Hunter S. Rife with ’90s musical references, substance use and boner jokes, The Spoils is a smart, witty read.

— Ken Picard

Suspect

Gina Tron, Whiskey Tit, 214 pages. $18.

I’d picture jumping from the roof of my middle school, the building where I experienced so much pain.

In 1999, Spaulding High School junior Gina Tron watched her best friend leave a threat on a classmate’s car. It was petty retaliation against a frenemy who’d been sending cruel notes of her own. But because the incident occurred just 10 days after the Columbine shootings, both girls ended up banned from a high-security prom and portrayed as powder kegs in the media. One piece of evidence cited by the authorities was a revenge fantasy Tron had penned in sixth grade.

Now an adjunct professor at Norwich University, Tron told some of her story of being a “suspected school shooter” in a viral 2013 Vice piece. In her memoir Suspect, she fleshes it out into a coming-of-age narrative that challenges assumptions about both school violence and “liberal” Vermont. She re-creates ’90s Barre in damning, believable detail — homophobia, racism, rigid sartorial conformity enforced by bullying — while acknowledging her own adolescent eagerness to provoke that conservative community. When the younger Tron finally graduates at the end of this resonant read, we breathe a sigh of relief for her.

— Margot Harrison