Editor’s note: This book review is by Rick Winston, who was the co-owner of the Savoy Theater in Montpelier from its inception in 1980 until 2009. He is now a film history instructor at the Montpelier Senior Activity Center, and a speaker on film history for the Vermont Humanities Council. He is the author of the recently published “Red Scare in the Green Mountains: Vermont in the McCarthy Era 1946-1960.”
[U]ntil I read J.C. Myers’ lively debut novel “Junkyard at No Town,” I had never heard the term “doodlebug,” at least as it applies to a homemade tractor. The doodlebug belonging to the ever-resourceful “Butchy” Guyette is scrounged from spare parts – a 1943 Ford, a 1970 Pontiac Firebird, a John Deere bulldozer, and a 1965 Dodge tow truck.
Butchy’s doodlebug is one of several vehicles – of semi-inspectable status at best – that play a vital role in Myers’ story of the fictional Iraton (located somewhere near Groton, says Myers in an introductory note). There’s a 1954 Dodge flatbed truck responsible for a Fourth of July parade debacle, a Toyota Corolla that is used as a septic tank, and the 1963 Chevy Impala (christened the “White Shark”) belonging to Jules Alpert, the college-dropout protagonist of the novel.
There are also more presentable automobiles that play a role: the Volvo belonging to Jules’ hippie-turned-realtor Aunt Martha, and a shiny Red Lotus – stolen twice over – that drives the plot in the second half of the story. But one does not need to have a grasp of automotive workings to enjoy this affectionate portrait of a particular slice of rural Vermont.
The novel might be described broadly as a coming-of-age story: Jules, a young man dissatisfied with his suburban life, flees to Vermont and finds a sense of purpose and community. But there are surprises. Jules has a particular “predilection for collecting what appeared useless to others” and this leads him not to a bucolic idyll but to buying an abandoned junkyard. He finds his people, or they find him: a group of misfits, scavengers, and social outcasts, most notably Butchy, the barely literate automotive genius. “To Aunt Martha, it was junk, but to Jules and Butchy, it was history, power, ingenuity, mystery … they were like naturalists in the rainforest.”
The time frame of the novel – the mid 1980s – slowly becomes apparent as the reader pieces together various references. Thus Aunt Martha’s turn to what David Brooks termed “bourgeois bohemianism” and her realtor boss Copeland DeMassey’s quest for the can’t-miss opportunity become emblematic of the materialism of the Reagan era. The setting also means that the older characters in the novel – like the arthritic Lutheria, who has the gift of “second sight,” and Glinda, mother of a troubled adolescent who finds a second home in Jules’ junkyard – can vividly remember a vanishing Vermont. It’s where Glinda’s grandparents, “gentle and soft-spoken old timers, seemed to be more from the 19th century than the 20th.”
Amid the humorous portraits, the colorful vernacular, and the twists of a fast-paced plot, there are musings – by Myers himself or his characters – on the enormous changes wrought in mid-20th century Vermont, from the introduction of the bulk milk tank to the beginnings of solid waste districts. There is also a sharp recognition of the realities of alcohol abuse, domestic violence, illiteracy, and poverty.
“Junkyard at No Town” may remind some readers of Carolyn Chute’s “The Beans of Egypt, Maine,” while others may reference David Budbill’s “Judevine.” There are hints of the eccentric inhabitants of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon as well as a touch of magical realism a la Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The novel flags a bit when the author brings in some dim-witted members of a Boston Irish criminal gang. But when Myers’ focus is on the inhabitants of Iraton (and its mysterious uncharted area of “No Town”) the humor and the social commentary provide a rewarding read. I hope that Myers has some more stories to tell.
