Mutual Aid

By Ruth MacDougall

As Mercy Blodgett says of herself, she seems to be related to almost everyone in Chiswick, N.H. To those she isn't, her husband Bob is likely to be. Just when a mill closing in 1986 costs the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0984065016
• ISBN13: 9780984065011
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Plaidswede
• Length: 249 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An interesting portrait of small towns and families

Mutual Aid is about many things, chiefly among them how people help, or "aid" each other, particularly in times of trouble. The two decades represented here - the 70s and 80s - are key too, especially because this was the time when the scourge of AIDS was just beginning to gain national attention. One usually thinks of the rural, small town hinterlands as being particularly unsympathetic to this heartbreaking disease. And probably MacDougall's fictional Chiswick, NH, was not much different in this respect, except for the heroine, Mercy Wheeler Blodgett, a writer who was obviously much more free-thinking than most of her fellow townspeople, and even her large extended family. Because this book is probably most of all about family, and how small towns are unique in the way, after several generations, practically everyone is related to everyone else, either by blood or marriage. Mercy and Bob Blodgett, both fifty-ish, have been a couple since high school, but they have no children. Because they're both local, however, they are related to most of the town, as evidenced by the rich and tangled tapestry of relatives represented in the story's cast. I had trouble keeping them all straight, and MacDougall also often refers back two or three generations in her narrative and even simple descriptions of objects and places, which sometimes makes it even more confusing. I kept wondering, "Is all of this family lineage really necessary?" In the end I suppose it is, if only for the "what a tangled web we weave" kind of reason. There is a mystery here, an arsonist, some divorce and remarriage and adultery; and also a resident pair of lesbians - and yes, they are both relatives too. And an unseen yet important character in Craig, a young gay man, who befriends Mercy through an extended correspondence over the course of about 15 years. He is known solely through his letters, but he comes alive perhaps more than some of the town characters who flit in and out of the story at will. My wife liked this book, and it is perhaps more of a "woman's book," all things considered, with all its detailed descriptions of clothing and food and furnishings and decor. I had to skim over some of that. What I liked the most, I think, is the feeling of family throughout the narrative - which isn't always a good feeling. Sometimes that much family can be stifling, smothering. I know. I live in that kind of small town myself. There's a kind of throwaway subplot in the story where Mercy's mother(?), Althea, who is the town clerk, wonders if she could also run for the sewer commision (I think I've got that right, but I'm not sure). I thought of that today when I read our local newspaper and saw a headline about filling a vacant county office. It read: "Member of group to select new sheriff is wife of applicant; 'no legal remedy' for dilemma." So yeah, that's the way small towns and rural counties really do operate. And there really could be a whole bunch of people from the same family o

Ruth MacDougall's New England

Mutual Aid is a brilliant taste of rural New Hampshire life, rough and tender with all the insight that MacDougall always brings to her novels. Like a 21st Century Trollope, she slices off a chunk of America and examines it minutely under a lens, revealing to her readers all the amusements, foibles and idiosyncrasies of the characters interacting on this rural stage. It is a many-layered novel and complex in a delightful way. Conveniently, a couple of family trees are included in the beginning lest we getlost in the confusion of the related and quasi-related citizens of this small New England town. Many things happen all at once it seems, but never is verisimilitude challenged. Above all, it is a well told tale of surpassing interest which the reader will keenly follow, filled with all the twists and conflagrations that make life both interesting and sometimes tragic.

Ruth Doan MacDougall Does It Again

In her latest novel, Ruth MacDougall's protagonist Mercy Wheeler Blodgett is faced with sudden changes in her life that would sink all but the most intrepid. She and her husband, Bob, both lose their jobs when the factory where they were working shuts down. Before she can adjust to that, her husband, at fifty-one, has a heart attack, and then another, and when he is moved to Boston to be on hand for a heart transplant, Mercy, on her own in the small New Hampshire town of Chiswick, is left to fend for herself, taking on odd jobs and part time work to supplement her meager writing income while waiting for Bob's transplant. Meanwhile, there's an arsonist abroad in Chiswick. And if that weren't enough for Mercy, she learns, over some months, that an ardent fan of her writing with whom she has been corresponding for years, and of whom she has grown fond, is gravely ill. I've read all Ruth's novels, and this one is as fine as the rest. As usual, I'm dazzled by the brilliant writing, the sentence complexity, and how good Ruth's ear is for the rhythms of the language. In MUTUAL AID, Ruth continues to impress with her sharp eye for details that enrich her several plot lines, while she drives along her page-turning story till the very end, with not a single thread left hanging.