Russell Banks - Hamilton Stark

It’s difficult to know how the content of her mother’s jeremiad affected Rochelle. We have only her self-description, offered much later, when her attitude toward her father had been altered considerably by the things she had heard from her father’s four other wives, from the testimony of numerous people, including myself, who had known him over the years in one capacity or another, from a lengthy interview with his dying mother and another with his sisters and a brother-in-law, and when she herself had, as they say, “gotten in touch with her anger.”

One could easily speculate about Rochelle’s reaction to the news (and at that time it was news) that her father was in many ways a self-centered, immature, violent, cruel, eccentric, and possibly insane man. But I’m afraid that in my own case any speculation would be influenced by my personal relationship with her, and thus, however innocently, I would tend to work toward evoking in the reader deep feelings of pity and admiration for this amazing young woman. Also, I’m not at all familiar with the nature of Rochelle’s relationship with her mother and therefore cannot confidently say that she did not have some secret use for refusing to believe her mother, i.e., that she did not, perhaps, need to think of her mother as a liar, as a bitter, middle-aged woman filled with self-pity, a mother in need of a villain to justify the absence of her husband throughout her daughter’s childhood and adolescence.

Suffice it to say, then, that I’m not the best person to be in the position of presenting, with anything that approximates objectivity, Rochelle’s emotional reaction to her mother’s testimony concerning the character of her father. Frankly, I am too much in love with Rochelle to be of much good to anyone in this particular matter, except possibly to Rochelle herself, and probably not even that. I admire the woman, and I say it with practically no qualification whatsoever, and because I am aware of how deeply and sharply she has suffered and how she has endured with intelligence, dignity and selflessness throughout, I am filled almost to overflowing with compassion for her. Also, I confess that for several years I have desired her love in return, have sought her favor in every way I could imagine, taking advantage of every slight opportunity to court her that has come my way — and as a result, I have had to watch myself lie for her, to know that I was, on certain occasions, violating all principles, even those few principles I had once thought inviolable. I say this without apology. I offer it merely as a warning.

My vulnerability to a woman like Rochelle is well known. Or at least it’s well known to me. Many men have a weakness (I should say, a “weakness”) for women with long, wildly flowing, deep red hair. And many men have a similar “weakness” for women who are tall, as tall or even taller than they themselves are, and who are thin without being gaunt, large without being big or heavy in any way. And, too, many men have a “weakness” for women who are well shaped, neatly and symmetrically proportioned. I am surely one of each of these types of men, and if that were all there was to my beloved Rochelle, I would be safe, as it were, and could report to you anything I might believe to be true of her without having to feel that I might be deceiving you to further my own rather special interests. But Rochelle is so much more than merely a tall, well-shaped woman with long red hair, that I am consequently that much less a reliable witness to her words and feelings.

I realize that so far I’ve not said a thing about Rochelle’s character or her spiritual nature or intellect. Nevertheless, I would like to linger a little longer on what might be called her “body.” She has skin on her body that is as smooth and white as a fine young onion, or as the flesh of an apple, or as an abalone shell worn smooth by a century’s tides. Dark green (blue-spruce green, actually), her eyes are tear-shaped, slightly downturned, with long, dark lashes. Her nose is long, straight, slender, the vertical arc that insists on the perfect symmetry of her face. Her mouth is neither large nor small, but full and expressive nonetheless, with a sharp, slightly protruding upper lip, a pouting lower lip, and large, white, even teeth that seem as ready to nibble as quick to bite. Her forehead, cheeks and chin are smooth, symmetrical, but at the same time sharply defined by angles which are clearly visible in all but the severest light. Ears — small, a happy maze of tender and delicate whorls, full-lobed. Throat — slender, long, white, and at the base, a mauve birthmark the size and approximate shape of a candle flame. And I have kissed that flame.

(Please note that I do not believe it would be appropriate for me to speculate on, or even to report what I know to be the case with regard to, Rochelle Stark’s character, her spiritual nature, or her intellect. It seems to me that these attributes would be better portrayed, more interestingly and realistically portrayed, in action, in medias res , as it were, and therefore I will put off such portrayal until later in the narrative, when my beloved Rochelle’s developed inner life can be made manifest more naturally and convincingly.)

IN CHAPTER FOUR PROPER, Rochelle’s mother — whose name, by the way, is Trudy Brewer Stark (she retained her married name after the divorce) — mentioned in passing that her daughter Rochelle was at present “hitchhiking all over the country, sleeping by the side of the road and all, not afraid of anything or anyone…” From the text, it’s also apparent, or should be, that at the time of the mother’s speaking the daughter is approximately twenty-two years old. As it happens, this interview was made four years ago, which would make Rochelle twenty-six now, a figure that is consistent with the information she has personally made available to me on different occasions.

It is true, as her mother claimed, that when she was twenty-two Rochelle was traveling about the country in a somewhat casual manner. Or so it seemed. She carried all her worldly goods on her back in a large Kelty expedition pack, slept in a sleeping bag at the side of the road or wherever she happened to find herself at nightfall, and after a fashion “lived off the land” by shoplifting at supermarkets and fruit stands, stealing from gardens and orchards, and, whenever possible, picking wild berries, fruit and nuts.

She lived this way for about a year, most of which she spent retracing the footsteps of her father’s fearful flight from New Hampshire, his wanderings that followed the desertion of his wife and infant daughter in Lakeland, Florida, and, when he discovered that in fact he had not killed his father and that his long hegira had been essentially in vain, his swift return home to New Hampshire.

Rochelle’s journey, a fact-finding tour more than a hegira or pilgrimage, was not in vain. She returned home to her mother’s apartment in Lakeland with the information she had gone out for. Essentially, the information was geographic and social, material that would help her realize her ambition to write a realistic novel about a man who was very much like her father, Hamilton Stark. She was young, and she had not traveled much, and naturally she had felt somewhat intimidated by the task she had set herself, especially when it came to writing about a character who had traveled rather widely in his youth and had spent most of his life locked inside the social confines of the working class. But her year-long note-taking journey reassured her that she would have little difficulty handling the geographic and social realism that her novel, as she had conceived it, would require. This was the point at which she began her series of interviews with her father’s five ex-wives, several of his friends, and his mother, sisters and brother-in-law. As I have mentioned, the interview with her own mother was the first in this series.