Louis McCutchen aka “Big Louis” is an elderly retiree, who, after the death of his wife, cashed out of his high-flying job in Boston and moved his family to the tiny hamlet of Levi Lamb in New York’s Adirondack mountains. Now, his girls are all grown up and Big Louis is the elder statesmen of his tiny town. His daughters are getting worried he can’t look after himself and are trying to convince him he should consider moving into a retirement complex. The increasingly curmudgeonly Louis won’t listen and as problems with the law and other people’s health begin to swirl around him he reaches out for comfort and companionship from his long deceased wife.

GIANT OF THE VALLEY is the first of Harry Groome’s two novellas that make up this book. The second, THE WITNESS, also concerns a patriarchal figure, as grandfather Jusuf is left behind in Sarajevo when his surviving family are offered the chance to flee from the war in Bosnia. Big Louis and Jusuf are very different characters. The residual wealth that the Adirondack retiree enjoys inures him to any real day to day hardships other than that caused by his age or disagreeable family members. Jusuf has seen everything he has known destroyed by a vicious war. Both men grasp at the past and find varying degrees of comfort in resisting or adapting to changes that are out of their control.

In these two very different novellas, Groome displays a real flair for nuanced prose and a keen ear for dialogue. With consummate ease the author is able to invoke both the verdant surroundings of the Adirondack mountains and the desolation and destruction of a city under siege. There are numerous passages of thoroughly enthralling fiction, notably the prologue to GIANT OF THE VALLEY, which recalls the car accident that fatally injured Big Louis’ wife. This short section is a masterclass in tragedy and tenderness and the fact that the outcome is inevitable from the first paragraph only underlines Groome’s skill as he maintains tension where by rights there should be none. Indeed, the fact that the overall plotting of GIANT OF THE VALLEY in particular is somewhat predictable is no great criticism. To complain would be rather like criticizing a master chef because their impeccable chocolate cake tasted only of chocolate. Sometimes quality is enough and there is no need for any great surprise or last minute plot twist.

With GIANT OF THE VALLEY and THE WITNESS, author Harry Groome has succeeded in crafting two thoroughly enjoyable novellas of very high caliber that show how two elderly patriarchs react to change by reflecting on their pasts and how each make very different decisions on their futures.

~Kent Lane for IndieReader