By Al LaFleche
Kings of the Earth is a novel based on events that took place in upstate New York in the early 1990s, which were the subject of an award-winning documentary, Brother’s Keeper.
It is the tale of the three Proctor brothers: Vernon, the eldest; half blind Audie, the middle son who has emotional or intellectual disabilities; and Creed, the youngest brother and the only one to have seen any of the world beyond the little town of Cassius, N.Y., thanks to Uncle Sam and the Korean War.
They are the sons of Ruth and Lester, one of the meanest drunks you’d never want to meet.
Along the way, we get to know Donna, their sister, who has gone on to nursing school; her husband, milking-machine salesman DeAlton; and their son, Tom, whose sole ambition is to become upstate New York’s premier dope dealer. We also meet Margaret and Preston Hatch, their closest neighbors and benefactors. Also in the mix are Delbert Graham, the local law enforcement officer; and Ben Wilson, a state trooper.
The story opens in 1990 with the death of Vernon being announced by Audie with the words, “My brother Vernon went on ahead.” He has died overnight in the bed the three brothers have shared since childhood.
Vernon had long been convinced the cancer that took their mother would come back after him. His post mortem reveals signs of possible foul play and the state police begin to investigate, with one of the brothers as the prime suspect.
The tale meanders from 1932 through 1990, though not in a straight narrative progression. The author flashes back and forth to fill in the lives of the Proctor brothers.
Each stop/chapter, titled by the year in which it takes place, consists of several subchapters focusing on pertinent characters. These may be as short as a single sentence, which is fleshed out by others. Some characters are presented in the first person; others, in a third-person, God’s-eye view. We come to know DeAlton through his half of conversations, often with his son, in such a way that Tom’s responses are clearly understood without being articulated.
While these changes in perspective could present a somewhat disorienting narrative, the author carries it off, and it works.
Clinch presents the brothers as undereducated, hardscrabble farmers as tied to the land as the most indentured of servants. They rarely bathe or change clothes and their arrival can clear the local “Dineraunt” in an instant.
Their lives are regimented by the cycles of the farm . . . get up early, milk the cows, wait for the co-op truck, feed the turkeys penned in an ancient school bus, watch some TV and go to bed. Repeat daily. Forever. Their only transportation is an old tractor.
Despite their unsavory descriptions and personal habits, Clinch portrays the Proctors as deeply sympathetic characters. The reader genuinely cares about them.
