Book Review: In Caddis Wood

The seasons of a year and of a marriage are the themes of this poetic and illuminating novel. Nature plays a starring role; Rockcastle (Rainy Lake) knows every twig and bush, bird and flower of the Wisconsin forest setting.

There is trouble everywhere--Carl and Hallie Fens have survived, barely, a bad patch in their marriage; Carl is dying of a degenerative illness; their daughter Bea was seriously injured in an accident, leaving her with neurological deficits; and Bea's twin, Cordelia, lost her husband in a devastating fire in Caddis Wood. Running under all this as a subtext is the danger to the environment that is present everywhere. Despite these grim realities, the story carries the reader along because of the well-drawn characters and the realism of what is being told; this family could be your neighbors.

Carl is a renowned architect whose firm has won a competition and is now charged with remediation of a toxic site. He is energized by the award because he has had to suffer through a retrospective celebration of his work, making him feel marginalized and as though his career was over. As his physical condition worsens, his mental acuity remains strong and he forges ahead, with help from Cordelia, whose professional life has intersected his.

Hallie is a poet who has always put family before her art. Now, she has endless hours for walks in the beloved woods, reading the journals left by the woman who built the cabin that is now her studio, and working on a new book about Demeter and Persephone. This is an appropriate subject for her, even though she knows that many have tackled it before, because she has been estranged from her mother for many years. Carl also has family trauma in his background--his father was killed in an automobile accident while driving with his flamboyant mistress, one of many. These events are part of their bond.

There is a secret unearthed by Carl that threatens to cause the marriage to founder; however, Hallie's tender care for Carl is one of the ways that helps them learn to reconnect, not before Carl makes certain admissions to himself about his early obsession with work.

Rockcastle has written an examination of a marriage, a paean to nature and a warning about ongoing environmental degradation and manages to make them all engaging. --Valerie Ryan

Shelf Talker: Hallie and Carl Fens, poet and architect, long-married parents of grown twin girls, learn to live with Carl's infirmity and revelations about themselves, helped by their mutual love of nature.

 

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