Russell Banks (1940–2023)

It took me a long time to get up the energy to read this 750 page historical fiction novel about the abolitionist/terrorist/martyr John Brown, but I ended up glad I did. Russell Banks is an excellent writer and had me completely immersed in this family's life and times. The focus of the book is actually Owen Brown, the third son of John Brown. When most people think of this family, they probably think of their time in Kansas and the fight between those who wanted Kansas to be a free state and those who wanted in to be a slave state. And then, of course, the raid on Harpers Ferry. But Banks, instead, explores the growth of the family and their time in the Northeast, meeting other abolitionists, codifying their beliefs, and just trying to make ends meet as a large, poor family.

I really liked this approach. I thought it was so interesting to imagine how John Brown and his family came to their beliefs during a time when it was not the norm to actively crusade for an end to slavery. Banks spends 600 pages on this time and a mere 150 on the final, famous events in Kansas and Harpers Ferry. It made the novel unique and presented a more nuanced view of John Brown and his family/followers.

I don't think this book will be for everyone, but if you have an interest in Civil War era, I think it is well worth your time.… (more)

Long and wordy, slow moving, and untrustworthy, this is the great American novel. Written from the point of view of John Brown's son Owen, some 50 years after the raid on Harper's Ferry, it tells Owen Brown's story from the time he was a young man, one of 20 children sired by John Brown. The book is set in Ohio, upstate New York, and of course Kansas. Over time Brown, a religious fanatic to start with, becomes even more and more obsessed with biblical retribution until it comes time for him and his family to commit some heinous murders. I call this the great American novel because it encompasses so much: live on the frontier in the first half of th 19th century, the relationship of a father to his son(s), the relationship of fiction and memories to truth, the relationship between black people and white people. Long, but intensely moving and just plain absorbing.… (more)

Engaging and well written story of a young man's coming of age in a Shaker colony in Florida during the early 1900s. The title of the book, Magic Kingdom, refers not to Disneyworld, but this earlier "kingdom" of Shakers on land in St. Cloud, Florida that later was bought by Disney.

I enjoyed the descriptions of Shaker life and struggles to create farmland out of swamps, and defend it from hurricanes, droughts, and fire.

The main character, Harley Mann, narrates the story as an old man recounting his youth and how he came to live in St. Cloud. His family is living in a socialist colony when his father passes away. In desperation Mrs. Mann takes her five children to live on a sugar cane plantation in Georgia, where they are indentured and kept in a kind of slavery by debt that is never paid off. The family is saved by Shaker Elder John Bennett, who arrives and pays their debts, after Mrs. Mann writes to him. The family resettles in the New Bethany colony in Florida, where Mrs. Mann becomes a devout Shaker, and her younger children are absorbed into the fold. Harley and his twin brother, Pence, appreciate the Shakers and their fair treatment, but neither is a believer. Harley becomes a protege of Elder John, while his brother Pence becomes a cowboy, working with horses and cattle. Because Elder John is training Harley to replace him, Harley comes to know Sadie, a young woman from the neighboring Tuberculosis sanatorium. Although the Shakers are celibate, Harley cannot help falling for Sadie, and from this secret relationship comes the tragedy that will ultimately destroy the colony.

Banks based this story loosely on the Shaker colony in St. Cloud. He claims to have found the audio tape reels recorded by Harley Mann in the local library. It's the first book I've read by Banks, but I will read more of his work.… (more)

"{He} did not mention blinding clouds of mosquitos. He said nothing of the long, torrential rainy season. He did not say that every few years a frost kills all the crops overnight....He did not tell us about the hurricanes. He neglected to describe the brutal intensity of the heat in summer, and the suffocating humidity from May to September, {the droughts, the wildfires}."

You would be forgiven if you thought this novel of historical fiction set in Florida was about Disney World. It is not, or at least only peripherally so, in that the land on which the novel is set supposedly was acquired in the mid-20th century by the Disney conglomerate. Instead it is about life in a small Shaker Community in early 20th century Florida. While fictional, the story itself has some basis in fact.
The story is purportedly told by Harley Mann, as set forth on some audio tapes Harley made in the 1970's when he was in his 80's. Harley came to the fictional Shaker community of New Bethany with his mother and siblings when he was a young boy. He grew up there, but as a young man fell in love with a young woman residing in a nearby tuberculosis sanatorium and decided that the celibate life of Shaker adults was not for him. The gist of the novel relates to a scandal involving the Shaker community elders and Sadie Pratt, the young woman Harley fell in love with.
I enjoyed this story of what life was like in a Shaker community. I also enjoyed getting a feel for what life was like in early 20th century Florida before the developers and conglomerates took over. This was not a particularly fast-moving story, but it was always engaging.
Of course after reading the novel I had to do some googling to try to see what was real and what was made up. There was an actual Shaker community back then in Central Florida called Olive Branch, not New Bethany, and there was a TB sanatorium located in nearby Narcoosee. A patient named Sadie (with the different last name of Marchant) resided at the sanatorium, and there was a similar scandal involving that Sadie and some of the elders from the Shaker community. So to that extent the story is fact based.
In addition, a note in the novel states that the burial ground for the Shaker community is still in existence on the grounds of Disney World. Supposedly it's located in the Animal Kingdom at the edge of a marsh "several hundred yards southwest of the Rainforest Cafe, where no one but Disney security guards patrols the area." Not sure if this part is fact based, but maybe something to be checked out.
3 1/2 stars… (more)