Barrowfields (Lewis)

The Barrowfields 
Phillip Lewis, 2017
Crown/Archetype
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451495648


Summary
A richly textured coming-of-age story about fathers and sons, home and family, recalling classics by Thomas Wolfe and William Styron, by a powerful new voice in fiction.

Just before Henry Aster’s birth, his father—outsized literary ambition and pregnant wife in tow—reluctantly returns to the small Appalachian town in which he was raised and installs his young family in an immense house of iron and glass perched high on the side of a mountain.

There, Henry grows up under the writing desk of this fiercely brilliant man. But when tragedy tips his father toward a fearsome unraveling, what was once a young son’s reverence is poisoned and Henry flees, not to return until years later when he, too, must go home again.
 
Mythic in its sweep and mesmeric in its prose, The Barrowfields is a breathtaking debut about the darker side of devotion, the limits of forgiveness, and the reparative power of shared pasts. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1971 (?)
• Where—the state of North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Carolina; J.D., Campbell School of Law
• Currently—lives in Charlotte, North Carolina


Phillip Lewis is an American attorney and author who was born and raised in the mountains of western North Carolina. His debut novel, The Barrowfields, was published in 2017. His law practice focuses primarily on real estate law in his home state.

In addition to writing literary fiction, Phillip plays several musical instruments, collects rare books, and studies language. Phillip also enjoys distance running, kayaking, and riding his mountain bike at the U.S. National Whitewater Center. He is a member of the Thomas Wolfe Society and the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Adapted from Hortak Talley.)

Book Reviews
The Barrowfields, with its almost Victorian title, offers in its own ways the pleasures of older novels, with their coziness and sweep, and their tacit belief that family is destiny. The prose has the beautiful attention to detail that embeds us in place.… At the core of this story is an alcoholic father stuck on notions of his own genius — a figure left over from the last century. My one quibble with the book was that I was waiting for Lewis to suggest a critique of this myth. Assumptions have changed. That said, The Barrowfields is a work of abundant talent.
Joan Silber - New York Times Book Review


In this charming, absorbing, and assured debut novel, a young man tries to make sense of his father’s life and the passions that unite them—namely, a devotion to literature.…  [Lewis's] prose is bracingly erudite. This debut has the ability to fully immerse its readers.
Publishers Weekly


[S]mall discrepancies…detract from the novel's credibility. Verdict: The devil is in the details in Lewis's first novel, which is wide in scope yet somewhat uneven in pacing and in the particulars. —Susanne Wells, Indianapolis P.L.
Library Journal


In his evocative debut about disenchantment and identity, Lewis captures the longing of a southerner separated from his home, his family, and his ambition.… Like fellow North Carolinian Thomas Wolfe, Lewis tackles the conflicting choice between accepting one’s roots and rejecting the past, and he does so with grace, wit, and an observant eye.
Booklist


Amid family tragedy, a young man flees the peculiar home of his youth only to return years later.… Promising but unfocused, this finely wrought debut novel would've benefited from more ruthless editing.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the nature of the town of Old Buckram in the mountains of North Carolina. Have you ever been to a town like this? Do you think it is based on a real place in North Carolina or elsewhere?

2. Talk about the decaying gothic mansion in Old Buckram where the Asters lived. Do you think the house served as another character in the story? Was the house haunted? Did Henry, as the narrator, try to dispel the notion that the house was haunted through his descriptions of it over time?

3. Discuss Henry’s relationship with his father, first as a 10-year-old child, and then later as a 16-year-old boy. Did Henry’s view of his father change during this time? What was most responsible for bringing about the change? Did Henry ever see his father as a hero, and if not, should he have?

4. Why did Henry’s father feel so compelled to complete his magnum opus (his novel) before the death of his mother, Maddy? What prevented him from doing so?

5. Why was it important for Henry that his father intercede to prevent Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying from being banned by the county and later burned on a pyre? Discuss the repercussions of this event for both Henry and his father.

6. Did you blame Henry for never returning to his mother or sister after he left for college? Why was he unable to return?

7. Discuss Henry’s relationship with his sister, Threnody. Why were they so close at an early age, and why did Henry allow them to grow apart?

8. Despite a physical attraction, what was it about Story that drew Henry’s attention to her so dramatically? Did he suspect that she had a traumatic event in her past that might link the two of them?

9. Are Henry’s efforts toward helping Story address her issues with her own father a way for him to repent for his abandonment of Threnody? What was it about Story and her relationship with her father that brought about Henry’s reconciliation with Threnody?

10. Does young Henry’s repression of painful memories as a psychological defense mechanism shape the way and order in which he tells his father’s story, as well as the story of his relationship with Threnody?

11. Discuss the role of the Barrowfields in the story. Were the Barrowfields intended to be representative of a larger theme in the book (for example, pertaining to Henry’s father)?

12. Discuss the role of “burning” in the story, and the irony of Henry’s father saving Faulkner’s book from destruction while not his own.

13. Given the numerous opportunities in the book for magical realism or surrealism (such as the macabre gothic mansion, the Barrowfields, and the witch horse), why do you think the author opted to resolve each such opportunity with stark realism?

14. Did you discover that many of the place names and character names have some extrinsic significance? For example, “Old Buckram” refers to “buckram,” which is a material that is used to make book covers (such that much of the story takes place within the covers of an old book). “Avernus,” the family cemetery, derives from a word used to refer to the entrance to the underworld. “Harold Specks,” the mountain priest who gave the sermon at Maddy’s funeral, is based on “haruspex.”

15. Did the ultimate fate of Henry’s father surprise you? What were the two events that were most salient in driving him to his eventual fate, and how were they related?

16. Why was Henry incapable of divulging his father’s fate until the end of the book? Had he been intellectually honest with himself about this father until his discussion with Threnody about their father, and would he have shared this information with the reader if not for the discussion he had with Threnody about the day of his father’s departure?

17. Whose fate in the story was ultimately more tragic: Henry’s father or Henry’s mother?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

top of page (summary)