‘Treat Us Like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves’ by Carolyn Chute
By Caroline Leavitt
Globe Correspondent November 29, 2014
Carolyn Chute, author of the sensational “The Beans of Egypt, Maine,’’ could be a character in one of her own novels. She doesn’t use a computer or have a phone, and she and her husband live a deeply rural Maine life. Pro-gun, pro-people, and antibusiness, she’s deeply concerned with how society mistreats its people, especially the poor.
Her latest book, “Treat Us Like Dogs and We Will Become Wolves,’’ is the second in her planned five-part series and follows her acclaimed novel, “The School on Heart’s Content Road.’’ This installment begins in the sweltering summer of 1999 or 2000 (“The years do blur,” remarks one of the book’s many narrators, this one an apparent proxy for Chute) and spans about eight months. At its center is the Settlement, a rural counterculture community. The members take as their focus helping the distressed and the downtrodden, building a safe, healthy community, and generally serving as an alternative to a world that seems ruled by money, power, and greed.
The group is pretty much left alone until anonymous tipsters begin calling the local newspaper, and rumors spread. It’s a cult, the residents whisper. There are pregnant child brides and child abuse, and even worse, a violent militia is stockpiling weapons, and who knows to what end? But are the stories true?
Intrepid local reporter Ivy Morelli, from The Record Sun, is looking for a breakout story for herself, and she thinks interviewing the community’s leader, Gordon St. Onge, could be just her ticket. At first, she’s shocked by the pregnant teens, and the 20 or so seemingly devoted wives following Gordon around like puppy dogs. But gradually, the hospitality of the Settlement charms her. She’s drawn to it — and to Gordon — and she ingratiates herself into the community.
Meanwhile across town, 15-year-old Brianna, or Bree, paints dazzling politically-minded and disturbingly personal artwork. Eventually, she joins the group and has a relationship with Gordon too, though she has far bigger dreams than just settling for being another wife. She’s determined to jumpstart a peaceful revolution with a very different kind of militia. It’s Bree who will cause a tsunami among the Settlement and the outsiders, one that will change just about everything for just about everyone — and not always in the best of all possible ways.
Chute’s prismatic story is narrated by a cast of characters so huge that Cecil B. DeMille might be jealous. It’s a tale told by “witnesses, spies, agents, friends, and foes, testimonies verifying and conflicting, some very large, others somewhat tiny” and to help you keep track, Chute provides clever hand-drawn little icons to signal subject matter: one for the Settlement, an ear for the FCC, a pencil for Ivy, others for scenes that show progress, past and present history, and more.
At the back of the book is a handy character listing along with descriptions of the players. But beside human voices, we also hear from TV, the voice of Mammon, and the grays, a group of aliens who are studying earthlings. The story isn’t exactly linear, as Chute moves back and forth into the future and the past to have one character or another reflect on all the happenings.
At times, her novel is lots of fun, and Chute has an infectious sense of humor. In “Author’s Note #2,’’ she writes: “Don’t twist your head trying to keep every character straight . . . I, myself, love character lists . . . Maybe you do, too.” But occasionally the book begins to feel overwhelmingly dizzy. Do we really need to hear from the aliens? Or from TV? Or Mammon? Can Chute’s points be made more efficiently? She tends to describe hair a great deal, and clothing and food, but it should also be noted that her descriptions are startlingly beautiful, with stop-in-your-track wording. (One man’s hair is “thin as scribbles”; the rain is “a nail gun”; while food includes a “flying-saucer-sized bowl of ruffly greens.”
As always Chute’s voice is smart, funny, and fired up about righting the wrongs of the world. She rails against society and how we are all being hoodwinked. She’s for solar power and against corporations and the gobbling-up of our resources. As one denizen warns Ivy, ”[d]ependency on computers, TVs and other gridlike things would not be good for us.”
The book has a breathless quality. It rolls over you like a tide, at times dazzlingly inventive, but at others, you feel as if you might drown in the details. Fiery, impassioned, and unlike anything else you will ever probably read, you can take Chute’s book as a warning, a letter from the future — or from the present — from people who are tired of promises and lies and just might not be willing to take it anymore.
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