Ron Charles
Tom Bailey drew the climax of his debut novel from a news report he heard in 1991 about a grisly incident in upstate New York, but The Grace That Keeps This World sounds more like some modern-day version of a Greek tragedy. With a chorus of narrators, his story about a family in the Adirondacks during the days leading up to hunting season moves slowly and beautifully toward an indelible disaster.
— The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
This accomplished, moving first novel (after Bailey's collection Crow Man) is about fathers and sons, tough love and compassion, the bonds of community and the solace of belief. Gary and Susan Hazen are natives of Lost Lake, a hardscrabble town in the Adirondacks, high school sweethearts who have raised their two sons on the satisfaction of living off the land. At this suspenseful narrative's outset, Susan recollects a fateful day, the start of deer hunting season, hinting that some tragedy has struck her loving but combustible family. Gary is a highly principled and respected woodsman and hunter, but his self-righteousness brings him into conflict with his sons. Both young men have secrets that will strain the family fabric, and together father and sons weave a tangle of intention and circumstance that will culminate in an act that will test their power to survive. Alternately narrated by the Hazen family and members of the community, the novel sustains an elegiac tone even as events rise to a dramatic denouement. This novel has the validity of deeply felt truths and characters who are bound and motivated by a love that arches the chasm of divergent ambitions and desires. Agent, Jane Gelfman. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Gary Hazen, his wife, and two grown sons live a hard, simple life in the remotest region of New York State. Gary expects his sons to share his values and work ethic unquestioningly, but their loyalties are divided. The novel's prolog indicates that something tragic will happen during the deer hunt on which the three men are about to embark, but the exact nature of this event is not revealed until the book's close. In alternating chapters, the Hazens, as well as other members of their community, narrate the events leading up to the hunt with mixed success. In most cases, the voices are not distinct enough from each other, and some chapters given to minor characters do little more than slow down the plot. Nevertheless, first novelist Bailey (see his short story collection Crow Man) does well in setting up the relationships and motivations of his cast, encouraging the reader's emotional investment in the book's conclusion. Recommended for most public libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/05.]-Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Gary Hazen lives with his wife and two grown sons in the Adirondacks, close to the Canadian border. They spend their days cutting trees, growing vegetables, and hunting for animals. Gary tries to keep his family together by providing for them as fathers have for centuries. Holding on to traditions and his own high standards, he expects them to do the same despite the many conflicts both internal and external affecting their lives. This exquisite novel centers around one event: opening day of deer-hunting season. An annual ritual for the Hazens, this important occasion determines how well they will eat during the harsh winter to come. When the younger son, a college student, decides not to participate in this year's hunt, his father becomes enraged and hits him, prompting Kevin to move in with his pregnant girlfriend on campus. In the meantime, the newly hired environmental conservation officer is determined to catch Gary illegally bagging an extra deer. Each chapter, written from one of the Hazens' viewpoints or those of other characters impacting their lives, builds up to the final tragedy as foreshadowed in the prologue. Vivid descriptions of the natural environment are abundant in this beautifully written first novel. A profoundly emotional experience, the story will hook readers.-Pat Bender, The Shipley School, Bryn Mawr, PA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Tensions simmer in a family right before deer season in the Adirondacks; an awkward first novel following a story collection (Crow Man, not reviewed). Gary Hazen is a forester in the North Country, in upstate New York, managing 40,000 acres for absentee owners. It's not an easy life, and money is always tight for Gary, wife Susan and his sons, 24-year-old Gary David and 19-year-old Kevin. Yet Gary loves the woodsman's life, and has conditioned his sons to love it too. Or has he? Gary David is obedience itself, but Kevin shows signs of straying from the reservation: He's attending college and considering teaching, and his vegetarian girlfriend has persuaded him not to hunt this season. Gary has another problem: There's a new environmental conservation officer, Josephine Roy, and the young woman will enforce all the hunting rules (Gary has been cutting corners to ensure enough venison for his family). Josephine is also having nocturnal trysts with Gary David, who's too scared to tell his dad. Bailey's principal theme is the nature of parental love, the importance of letting go. What he doesn't have is a plot. We know early on the Hazens will encounter tragedy on the first day of hunting, but Bailey fails to develop a storyline that will lead us to it. Instead, we get diversions: The longest one involves a documentary film crew and some dead geese in need of painting (don't ask). He does himself another disservice by using 13 narrators to tell his story, to pull the community into an essentially domestic tale, to involve the church, the diner and the saloon. This is Richard Russo territory, but Bailey lacks Russo's steady hand. Narrative momentum goes out the window. When the tragedy finallyoccurs, without witnesses, it's not the outcome of the father-son conflict, and that's the biggest failing of all. Conflict without confrontation makes for a very unexciting read.
