Castle Freeman

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Castle Freeman, Jr. (born November 26, 1944 in San Antonio , Texas ) is an American writer . He lives in Vermont and writes primarily about rural New England and its people. Known in German are the novels Men with Experience , On the Gentle Tour and The Smarter Invites .

Life

Castle Freeman was born in San Antonio, Texas, where his father was stationed during World War II . He grew up in Chicago and attended Columbia University in New York . In 1972 he and his wife moved to the southeast corner of Vermont, where he found the subject that has preoccupied him as a writer ever since: rural New England and its people. He regards the prevailing attitude to life there as the main source of his creative energies. Freeman lives in the small town of Newfane .

Throughout his career, Freeman has worked as an editor and proofreader for both book and magazine publishers. He wrote essays, reports, commentaries and factual texts in the field of history and natural history. He wrote regularly for various magazines, including The Old Farmer's Almanac (1982-2011), Harrowsmith Country Life Magazine (1992-93) and Vermont Life Magazine (2009-2013). For the Townshend Historical Society he wrote a city history about the small town of Townshend , Vermont.

Novels

Men with experience

Men with experience (originally published in 2008 as Go With Me ) was, according to Wolfgang Höbel, "a surprise success with critics and readers". Compared to Freeman's previous releases, it is more in the direction of a literary thriller . The story in which an indomitable woman and two inadequate helpers - a strong but naive boy and an old but savvy day thief - set out on the seemingly hopeless path of stopping a provincial thief who is terrorizing the whole area Hans Jörg Wangner as a modern version of the story of David and Goliath . The unequal fight is commented on by four laconic old men, whose dry dialogues are cut against the plot.

Rainer Schaper classifies the novel as a “modern western ”, the atmosphere of which is reminiscent of films like Fargo or Twin Peaks . As if by the way, it also tells of the decline of America and offers "an exciting portrait of US society in times of the Trump election". Wolfgang Höbel reads a “comical and thrillingly narrated disaster drama” that shows a “thoroughly depraved, primeval world” and follows “the most beautiful traditions of American storytelling”. Ulrich Greiner discovers “a highly legible and worth reading Capriccio ” by an author he previously unknown: “cleverly made and remembered”.

A film adaptation of the novel called Blackway was released in theaters in 2016. The main roles were played by Anthony Hopkins , Julia Stiles , Ray Liotta , Alexander Ludwig , Lochlyn Munro and Hal Holbrook . Directed by Daniel Alfredson . Christian Brückner read in the novel as an audio book. The Südwestrundfunk produced in 2018 a radio play version (editing and directed by Irene Schuck ) with Meike Droste , Walter Renneisen , Stefan Haschke u. a.

On the gentle route

On the gentle tour ( All That I Have , 2009) Lucian Wing does his job as a sheriff in Brattleboro in rural Vermont, which means he lets things take its course rather than intervening. His professional conception is being tested by newcomers, Russians, who are obviously part of organized crime. When their safe was stolen during a break-in, they pulled out all the stops to get the explosive contents back. Wings care, however, applies more to the local suspect, the young petty criminal Sean Duke, known as "Superboy", than to the victims of the theft, who threaten to disturb the peace in his county with their brutal methods .

Wolfgang Höbel reads the novel as a “rogue piece”, in which one “a small town sheriff turns out to be a kind of Zen master in the art of warfare against large-scale crime” and thereby proves “the wit and wisdom of the hillbilly”. According to Ulrich Baron, behind the superficial simplicity of the first-person narrator hides a thoroughly elaborate irony and behind the “provincial crook and marriage comedy” a “philosophy of living and letting life”. According to Hans Jörg Wangner, Castle Freeman once again proves to be a “master of laconic wit”. For Franziska Meister, the novel reads “like a script for a film by the Coen brothers ”, but the real protagonist of the novel is Vermont and its residents.

In 2018 , the Südwestrundfunk produced a radio play based on the novel, adapted by Silke Hildebrandt . The speakers included Thomas Krümmel , Thomas Niehaus , Claude de Demo , Stefan Haschke , Markus Scheumann and Antonia Mohr .

The smarter one reloads

Sheriff Lucian Wing also follows the maxim of letting things take care of themselves as far as possible in the follow-up The Smarter Loads (in the English original: Old Number Five , which refers to the fourth, formerly fifth commandment to honor father and mother) . But several events put him under pressure, both privately and professionally: his wife Clemmie cheats, his mother shows signs of incipient dementia, the female deputy Gilfeather shows unusual zeal for work and the retired Colonel Roark demands the investigation of a series of alleged accidents in which petty criminals shake hands or have lost their eye. Wing's predecessor Wingate advocates the thesis that sometimes it takes people who take it into their own hands to take care of things.

Sonja Hartl reads in the "Comfort of the Province" a nasty, mean and extremely ambiguous story about vigilante justice and long-kept secrets. " again an exaggeration ”, which involves the sheriff himself. Hannes Hintermeier draws the conclusion: “Laws? Moral? Something for the others, outside of the valley. ”For Georg Patzer“ an unpleasant taste remains ”and he asks concerned:“ Is that how things are handled in Vermont and the surrounding states? ”

Ali Cem Deniz not only reads an exciting thriller, but also “a successful portrait of a small American town” with a laconic sense of humor that makes him smile. Franziska Meister even speaks of “philosophical miniatures” when referring to Sheriff Wings. For Hannes Hintermeier, Christian Brückner reads “North-Eastern […] like a Western” in the audio book published by Parlando , where he “evokes film images and envelops the text like a cloud of aftershave”.

Publications

  • The Bride of Ambrose and Other Stories (short stories, 1987)
  • Spring Snow: The Seasons of New England from The Old Farmer's Almanac (Essays, 1995)
  • Judgment Hill (novel, 1997)
  • My Life and Adventures (Roman, 2002)
  • A Stitch In Time: Townshend, Vermont, 1753–2003 (City History, 2003)
  • Go With Me (novel, 2008)
  • All That I Have (novel, 2009)
    • German: On the gentle tour . Translated from the English by Dirk van Gunsteren. Nagel & Kimche, Zurich 2017, ISBN 978-3-312-01014-1 .
  • Round Mountain: Twelve Stories (Short Stories, 2012)
  • The Devil in the Valley (novel, 2015)
  • Old Number Five (Roman,?)
    • German: The smarter one reloads . Translated from the English by Dirk van Gunsteren. Nagel & Kimche, Zurich 2018, ISBN 978-3-312-01058-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b About the Author on Castle Freeman, Jr.
  2. ^ Quick Fire At The Slaughterhouse: Interview With Castle Freeman . In: Richard Godwin . February 21, 2016 ( richardgodwin.net [accessed June 1, 2018]).
  3. ^ Margot Harrison: Newfane Author's Book Now a Film Starring Anthony Hopkins . In: Seven Days of September 4, 2015.
  4. ↑ a b Wolfgang Höbel : wit and wisdom of the backwoodsmen . In: Literatur Spiegel from January 28, 2017.
  5. ↑ Shawn Conner: Interview with novelist Castle Freeman . In: The Snipe News of October 28, 2009.
  6. ^ Margot Harrison: Book Review: The Devil in the Valley, by Castle Freeman Jr. In: Seven Days . ( sevendaysvt.com [accessed July 7, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Hans Jörg Wangner: Three Davids and a Goliath . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung of March 10, 2016.
  8. ↑ Rainer Schaper : "Men with experience": Sparse westerns from Vermont's forests . In: SRF of April 5, 2016.
  9. ↑ Men with experience . In: Kulturzeit from December 6, 2016.
  10. ↑ Wolfgang Höbel: Woman needs reinforcement . In: Literatur Spiegel from February 27, 2016.
  11. ↑ Ulrich Greiner : Not from here In: The time of August 12, 2016.
  12. ↑ Blackway in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  13. ↑ Men with experience in the ARD audio game database
  14. ↑ Ulrich Baron: Live and let die . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of May 28, 2017.
  15. ↑ Hans Jörg Wangner: How to make a drunk think . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung of February 2, 2017.
  16. ↑ Franziska Meister: Quite a lot of Russians . In: WOZ The weekly newspaper from July 13, 2017.
  17. ↑ On the gentle tour in the ARD audio game database
  18. ↑ Interview: Literaturtest, 2018, printed on buecher.de .
  19. ↑ Sonja Hartl: A story about vigilante justice and long-kept secrets . In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur from March 16, 2018.
  20. ^ Stefan Fischer: Survival in Cardiff . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of April 5, 2018.
  21. ↑ a b Hannes Hintermeier : We stand here for the valley . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from August 4, 2018.
  22. ↑ Georg Patzer: All a bit except the track . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung of February 12, 2018.
  23. ↑ Ali Cem Deniz “The smarter one reloads” . In: FM4 of June 30, 2018.
  24. ↑ Franziska Meister: "You incompetent dud" . In: The weekly newspaper of February 22, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Freeman, Castle
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Freeman, Castle junior (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 26, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH San Antonio , Texas