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The life and circumstances of the central character of A Far County, the second novel of Daniel Mason, are undoubtedly alien to most of its readers.
Isabel is a teenager in a Third World country that has been traumatized by drought, civil unrest and poverty. She also has a preternatural ability to see “further” than others – a sixth sense that sometimes frightens and confuses her. But author Mason leads readers into Isabel’s external and internal lives with expert skill, allowing a quick embrace of her circumstances and spirit.
Isabel has spent her first 14 years in a rural, desperately poor village whose residents, including her father, are completely dependent on jobs harvesting sugarcane. When there is rain, there is work in the cane and families are able to plant gardens on small plots of land that have been handed down through generations. Still, life is harsh. Houses have dirt floors and hammocks instead of beds. Most of the villagers don’t have ready access to running water, electricity or the most basic appliances.
But unyielding drought has turned a harsh life into an unbearable one. There is such desperation among the villagers, they mix dirt into what little food they have (hummingbird meat, bugs) to make it last. They are bullied by wealthy men who think nothing of kicking them off their land because they don’t have “papers” proving ownership. Civil war rages around them. This is a grim world for anyone, but particularly a child of Isabel’s sensitivities.
Dreams of city life
Despite the dismal subsistence and terrifying surroundings, Isabel considers the village her home and is deeply attached to it and her family, especially her older brother Isaias. She is so in tune with him, she is able to locate him in a dark sugarcane field by intuition alone. Isaias loves his family, but dreams of a different life outside of the sugarcane fields. He eventually takes off to try his luck as a musician in the big city – a place that has reached mythical proportions among the impoverished villagers.
“In the city, the poor are rich, minimum-wagers are kings. The men don’t cheat you in the city, they aren’t powerless, they don’t drown themselves in drink, they don’t hit. The women don’t get old before their time. In the city, if you are thirsty there are fountains,” the villagers say.
After a few weeks, he calls home (to the village’s sole phone) to tell his family he is staying with their cousin Manuela, he is working and life is good. He also sends some money home to help them. Isabel’s parents, encouraged by Isaias’ success and fearing Isabel is starving, decide to send her alone to the city to reunite with him so he can help her establish a new, more prosperous life.
From the moment Isabel hops on the overcrowded flatbed truck for the long, grueling trip to the city, she is awash in the misery and pale, pathetic hope of the rural immigrant. But it’s just the beginning of the horrors and disappointments Isabel will encounter in the city.
Nowhere to be found
When she finally makes it to Manuela’s home in the city, she learns Isaias has not been seen or heard from in weeks. The cousin’s house, where Isabel is to stay, is in the middle of a horrific slum of stacked -up shanties teeming with rural refugees. Her neighbors are the dispossessed and unsophisticated who have failed to find purchase in the land of dreams. One of their greatest daily pleasures is climbing the mountain of trash in the city landfill in search of food and household goods. They are despised by long-time city dwellers and are tormented in equal measure by criminals and police.
Finding Isaias in the burgeoning, unfamiliar city seems an impossibility, even for a girl with a sixth sense. For a time, Isabel is too frightened to leave the shanty. While Manuela works as a maid for the rich during the week, Isabel takes care of her cousin’s baby, whose father is trying to make a living elsewhere. Mason has a lot to say about poverty in the Third World in this novel and he surely wanted to shine a light on it, but “A Far Country” is not a political treatise. Mason never names the country or time period specifically. Thus, the focus remains on Isabel’s journey without distraction from historical or geographical references. It’s a time of fundamental change for Isabel and her country, which is torn between its agricultural past and increasing industrialization. As a young teen, Isabel also stands poised between two realms; she is still a child in some ways and a woman in others. And her strange, intuitive ability puts her, as her mother says, “somewhere between this world and the next.”
Not what they seem
However, no one and no place can be two things for long. The tension can’t be sustained. Change, whatever direction, is inevitable for Isabel and her country. When she finally feels compelled to search the city for her brother, she learns bit by bit that things aren’t what they should be or even what they seem.
Mason’s first novel, “The Piano Tuner,” was published in 2002 when he was a medical student at the University of California. It won universal praise and significant awards. Those fans won’t be disappointed with his sophomore effort.
Essay by DelMio writer Mary Ethridge
A Far Country. By Daniel Mason. ISBN 978-0-375-41466-4. $24. Published by Alfred A. Knopf. 268 pages.
This Side Trip is sponsored by Random House.
