"Hold Fast" by Spencer K.M. Brown

Thom Algonquin and his adult son Jude live in Minnesota on the shore of Lake Superior. Thom drives a snowplow for the county, and he’s staying busy this winter. When he’s not plowing county roads, he’s at home, working on a sunroom. In fact, he’s removed the back door and wall of their house to build the room. In winter. Thom’s also trying to come to grips with the death of his beloved wife a year before. Maybe that will happen when he builds the sunroom. 

Jude had made the Olympic rowing team, until a freak accident with a glass refrigerator shelf sliced his muscle and put an end to that. Now he washes dishes in the local diner, mourning the loss of his girlfriend Emily after he shut her and everyone else out of his life. At home, he stays mostly cold, with that missing back door and wall.

 

Well before the sunroom might be finished, Thom decides to build a boat and row across Lake Superior. For wood, he eyes the yew tree that his wife planted many years before. They have their memories, but the yew tree is the only tangible reminder left of wife and mother. 

 

Spencer K.M. Brown

These two men, how they deal with loss, and how they might break free of what is largely a self-made mental and emotional prison is the subject of Hold Fast, a beautiful novel by Spencer K.M. Brown. I read it slowly, over a period of weeks, because I soon discovered it deserved to be read slowly. 

 

Brown previously published the novel Move Over Mountain and this year published a poetry chapbook, Cicada Rex. His stories and poems have received a number of prizes and recognitions, including the Penelope Niven Award, the Flying South Fiction prize, the Doris Betts Fiction Prize, and the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize. He lives in North Carolina with his family.

 

I was so taken with Hold Fast that I ordered both Brown’s first novel and his poetry chapbook. Hold Fast is a moving, marvelous story of resilience and family love, even when that love is stretched to the breaking point.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Thinking Constitutionally about the Electoral College – Jordan Cash at Real Clear Public Affairs.

 

Explore Your Publishing Options – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

King’s Cross and the Lighthouse – A London Inheritance.

 

Why the death of Chevron matters – Morgan Marietta at The Spectator.