The Barrowfields

The Barrowfields by Phillip Lewis

     Henry Aster's father comes from a small town in North Carolina called Old Buckram.  A town he never belonged in because he was nothing like the others.  From the start there was something different about Henry.  He loved books and couldn't read enough of them.  No one in the town or his family ever finished school, but Henry was going to be different there, too.  He does leave, finishes school, marries and starts a life far from Old Buckram.  He is glad of that. He never intends to go back.  Until one day he does, because he must.
     Henry packs his pregnant wife and moves back for what he hopes is a short time, but he buys a house.  This house is a monster in size and disposition as it looms over the side of the mountain like a vulture looking down from a tall tree.  The house is even called a vulture. 
   Slowly, slowly, Henry finds himself stuck.  He thinks he can write his book anywhere and with a tormented soul he tries.  Old Buckram is not where he wants to live, raise his family, go back.  Henry never thought he would have to go back.
   His son, also Henry, grows up in Old Buckram and finds himself trapped living with  his father's tormented soul. Slowly, slowly Henry's father is consumed by his demons, affecting the whole family.
   Young Henry now faces the same decisions his father did.  He knows he has to leave that mountain, that house and his mother and sister in order to save himself.  But how do we ever really leave and come to grips with the hand we are dealt, especially when that hand is doomed from