My Thoughts
The author, Paul, and his wife, Jennifer, are finding life in the big city of San Francisco to be less than ideal for raising a child. So they dispose of their place in California and head to the village of Hay-on-Wye in Wales, where they have vacationed several times in the past. Note that Paul is the American born child of British citizens and as such is considered a British national by that country, so just up and moving there is not as complex as it might be. The action in this book also takes place pre-9/11 (specifically during the year 2000) so all craziness introduced by that incident is not yet in place.

Both Paul and Jennifer appear to be writers, and not employed in such a way that they’re tied to a geographic location. This and Paul’s citizenship status remove the biggest obstacles to indulging in their whim, and so they proceed to Wales. When they arrive, they establish themselves at a B&B and begin looking for a more permanent residence. It does not take them too long to locate an apartment which they can take for a longer period of time and they move in above one of the forty bookshops in the town.

The remainder of the book details their efforts and failure to locate a suitable house to purchase, and their eventual decision to give up and return to the United States.

It’s hard to discuss the book itself without making judgements upon the actions taken by the author and his family, so I’m going to get that out of the way first. I think their plan was poorly thought out and even more poorly executed. Though they had visited the town several times previously, they did not appear to have any real idea about the real estate market in the area and they had only the vaguest of notions about the neighborhood aside from the fact that there were bookstores around. Their search for a house was lackluster at best, as they apparently looked at only three or four houses during their entire effort. And then, when they decided that Hay-on-Wye was not the town for them, instead of looking nearby for a more suitable location, they packed it in and returned to the United States. It was all very odd.

Now, how much of the oddness stems from the way the tale was told, I cannot say. It is entirely possible that there were lengthy conversations and much house hunting which took place off camera and was neither alluded to nor described in any way. In fact, I know there must have been at least a few discussions which were not related to the reader, as we are informed of the family’s imminent return to the U.S. as a sort of aside, in the author’s thoughts as he converses with a resident of the town.

As one might guess from this, the narrative itself is very episodic, jumping from one event to the next and glossing over details which, while not necessary, would give more insight into the people in the book. At many points I felt like the author started a thread and then dropped it without resolution. For instance, at the beginning of the book we find ourselves in London, where Paul has agreed to do a freelance article about how some old conduits are being used now for fibre optic cables. This all ties in somehow with green construction, and he goes around London looking for examples of this. He doesn’t find any right away, and we never hear what happened with this article, the proceeds from which were supposed to cover part of the costs of moving to Wales from California. Did he ever write it? Did he make stuff up? What happened? The reader is left hanging.

This sort of thing happens over and over again throughout the book. Paul is hired to organize a section at one of the bookshops in town, owned by the man who made the town into the used bookshop haven it is today. He works on it diligently for a good fraction of the book, and then suddenly he mentions that he is done working there, with no real explanation as to why. Was he finished? Did he quit? What happened? The family looks at several houses, and clearly they do not end up buying any of them, but the interactions with the current owners trail off without any satisfying conclusions.

In the midst of these unfinished anecdotes that make up the bulk of the story are little bits of information and quotations which the author has pulled from old books, obscure and not so obscure. For many of these inserts he provides a proper citation, with the book of origin’s title, author and date of publication. And for others he provides no citation at all, throwing them out as random bits of trivia. Random bits of hard to check trivia. I know this isn’t a scholarly work, but if you’re going to say things that sound too odd to be true, then surely you’re well aware of how they sound and of the potential need to back these assertions up with proof. Some sources might have been nice.

The writing itself flowed well and struck just about the right note of humor. I kept wanting to compare him to John Hodgman; he certainly isn’t in the same class as Hodgman or even Dave Barry at his best, but the prose was very readable, and the selections from older books were varied and interesting. I would like to compare him to Bill Bryson or Peter Mayle but, alas, I have not yet gotten around to reading either of them, so I can’t.

My Thoughts
I’m not sure how realistic I find the scenario proposed in this book. The turning point in this alternate history is the peace treaty Britain signs with Germany in 1941, around the time the Blitz is ending. Why would Germany propose peace at that time? Why would Britain agree? I’m not sure. Germany clearly gets something out of the deal — they no longer have to fight a war on two fronts. But they started the war in the first place, so they surely thought they could win. There are hints also that Japan was not defeated either, and certainly things are going oddly in the United States, as Charles Lindbergh is president instead of becoming a pariah. I don’t feel like enough information was given to make a conclusion as to how logical this was or not. The history is just presented as is, without any real information given other than the existence of this peace accord.

In addition to these broad issues with the whole timeline, there are a few problems in the specifics of the characters. Bisexuality and homosexuality appear to be rampant among the cast of characters assembled. I’m all for presenting these things as common, but it starts to feel like a BL manga when the whole cast is sleeping with or has slept with someone of the same sex. There were about 10-12 characters who had more than a walk on appearance in the story, and of those, half were either currently or previously involved in a same-sex relationship.

The solution to the mystery was also presented in a confusing fashion. In the grand tradition of the golden age crime novel, the solution was presented at the end by the detective. He gives a grand monologue to his superior, going over all the things he’s managed to learn and how they relate to the crime. But the Inspector presented the case in a pretty wishy washy fashion, with very little actual evidence and lots of conjecture. He never managed to actually acquire several important facts which would have strengthened his conclusions. I don’t doubt that his lack of information, contrasted with the similar but different lack of information of Lucy Kahn, the book’s other protagonist, was part of the point, but it just made it seem like he wasn’t particularly competent.

I also have to say that I found it jarring to keep skipping back and forth between first person chapters from Lucy’s point of view to third person chapters from Carmichael’s point of view. It’s a very odd style choice.

The writing itself, I can find little to gripe about. It was plain and to the point, without a lot of frills and pointless description cluttering it up. If not for the depressing subject matter making it difficult to read for an extended period of time, the book would have been a reasonably quick read.

The Plot
A Gathering of Days purports to be the diary of one Catherine Hall, written from October 1830 through March 1832. Catherine, the 13 year old daughter of a widowed farmer, lives in Meredith, NH with her father and younger sister. The role of woman of the house has fallen upon her since the death of her mother and she combines that with her role as a child going to school and trying to maintain friendships with her peers. Later, her father remarries a woman from Boston and the whole family must adjust to the new situation.

My Thoughts
Being from NH, I was naturally interested to discover that this book didn’t just take place in New England (generally code for Massachusetts), but New Hampshire. The family live up in the lakes region, near Lake Winnepesaukee. In spite of having lived in the state itself for about 20 years, I must admit that I’ve only been up to that region a handful of times, and never for very long. But as far as I could tell, the depiction of the setting was more or less historically accurate.

The sequence of events was not bad, but several things occurred which were terribly far fetched or poorly plotted.

First, the runaway slave business. Early in the book, Catherine finds a note left in her composition book by a mysterious writer. She and her friends speculate about the possible identity of the note writer and eventually assist this person by giving him a quilt. Later, she receives a package in the mail from the mystery man containing some nice lace as a thank you for helping him in his flight to Canada. Leaving alone the artificiality of having the runaway slave be able to read, write, and hang around town for several weeks so he can be given the quilt, the receipt of the package is completely unreasonable. Mail was an event in those days, and a 14 year old girl would not be able to get a package without considerably more comment than Catherine got (which was precisely none.)

Then there were a number of events which seemed influenced by Laura Wilder’s Little House books. The extended Fourth of July sequence was very reminiscent of scenes from her books, as were the teacher issues and the story of the stump in the woods.

The author also was determined to pack in as many 1830s pop-culture references as she could. Perhaps a few too many, even if she was just trying to ground the story more firmly in the time period. Things which stuck in my head include the Nat Turner slave rebellion, Daniel Webster, Sarah Josepha Hale and the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument.

Those complaints aside, it wasn’t a bad book. It wasn’t a particularly introspective or deep thinking book, but it was a pleasant, quick read and not actively offensive. Catherine was not annoying, and was quite able to think for herself and not fret overmuch about decisions and actions. The marriage of her father was handled quite well for a book of this sort, and though there was friction between herself and her new step-mother, the amount was not overblown and everyone seemed interested in working toward a harmonious co-existence. Even with the random character death in the last third of the book, it was all refreshingly drama free.