The Call, by Yannick Murphy. 220 pages.
Murphy, who lives in Vermont with her veterinarian husband and their husband, has structured this gentle little novel around the calls received by a large animal vet in an unnamed northern New England town of 600. As summer bleeds into fall, the prosaic calls, and the vet’s musings as he responds, quickly sketch the character of this quirky rural community. Dorothy has a sheep, Alice, who lives in the house and goes everywhere with her. A hired hand with a choking horse, cured by a tranquilizer. A cat owner who pays for euthanasia with sausage and bacon.
As these simple tasks accrete, the narrator vet also slyly begins to relate the daily grind at home. His wife cooks dinner for him and their three pre-pubescent children, Sarah, Mia and Sam. Sam, just turning 12, is ready to sit in the deer blind come hunting season, but his mother, Jen, is worried about the safety on the gun. Sarah gets a cut over her eye, and her dad sews it up.
But other, possibly darker elements get woven in. Dave (the vet) and Jen (his wife) talk routinely about a spaceship which hovers overhead, seen only by their family. Dave thinks a mysterious caller, who never speaks, might be from the spaceship. And the structural conceit of the book, written as a series of answers to topics outlined in bold, all caps – “The Call”; “What my son said at dinner”, “What I said”;, etc – allows for easy entry of hidden thoughts and even messages from the creaking house, the buzzing flies, and the darkening sky. This, plus the short declarative sentences use, ala Vonnegut, provides the contrast of a simple exterior with a deep, challenging view of human nature and especially the dynamics of family, father and son.
A family tragedy interrupts the pastoral life. Even so, the days meander thru winter and into spring, when a spaceman appears, or maybe he’s just a visitor from Philadelphia. By the time spring buds appear, life has returned to normal, and by summer, Dave can once again rejoice in the unity of his family on their farm:
“Jen serves us casserole made with zuchinni fresh from the garden and while we eat I look out at all of them, happy to see their faces, the steam rising off their plates making me want to wave it away, making me want to see them as clearly as I can.”