The Jungle Law
Victoria Vinton
MacAdam/Cage Publishing, October 2005
350 pages
A story of the explosive and redemptive powers of the imagination set during the year Rudyard Kipling lived in Vermont and wrote The Jungle Books.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In 1892, at the age of twenty-six, Rudyard Kipling arrived in Vermont, virtually penniless with a newly pregnant wife and the germ of a story about a feral child who was raised by a pack of wolves. Having fled the literary high life in London, he hoped to find a quiet corner in which to raise a family and work, where he might build a sanctuary that could offer him refuge from the scrutiny incurred his burgeoning fame and the wounds of his own troubled past.
From this literary footnote, first-time novelist Victoria Vinton has fashioned in The Jungle Law a tale of wisdom and beauty and grace as she tracks Kipling’s ultimately doomed attempt to establish a home in Vermont. She brings to life Kipling’s early years in Bombay where he lived as the pampered rapscallion son of a well-connected British family, and she limns the repercussions of the abandonment he felt when, at the age six, he was severed from his family and sent to live in a foster home in England that he later dubbed “The House of Desolation.” And she shows how those experiences formed the basis of his art, as out of this cauldron of comfort and pain he wrote The Jungle Books and created his most enduring character Mowgli, the cast-off boy who’s adopted by the wolves and grows to be lord of the jungle.
Mixing fact and invention, Vinton parallels Kipling’s story with that of his neighbor’s, the Connollys, who, like Kipling, have come to Vermont to forge a better life for themselves but who are forced to question the decisions they have made in the wake of Kipling’s presence in their lives. Joe, the Connolly’s eleven-year-old son, finds himself drawn to Kipling and his stories, seeing in the tales and adventures of Mowgli a template for his own empowerment.
In precise and stunningly evocative prose, Vinton follows these characters as their struggle to redefine themselves and overcome their conflicts leads to the book’s heart wrenching and literally explosive climax.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victoria Vinton’s short stories have appeared in various publications including Sewanee Review and Prairie Schooner. A recipient of an Artist Fellowship from the New York Foundation of the Arts and a Masters of Fine Arts degree in writing from Columbia, she lives with her daughter in Brooklyn, New York, where she works as a literacy consultant for the New York City Public Schools. The Jungle Law is her first novel.
FROM THE AUTHOR
The seeds of this book began to take root when, as the mother of a young child, I observed how my daughter seemed to feel a need to inhabit and internalize the stories that she loved by becoming the characters in a way that seemed more urgent and cathartic than a mere game of pretend. Reading to her, I also felt the primal pull of stories, and I found myself intrigued by writers who wrote for children, especially those like Hans Christian Andersen and Kipling whose stories could be read as reworkings of their own childhood struggles and pains. When I stumbled on the fact that Kipling wrote The Jungle Books while living in Vermont, I was further intrigued by the juxtaposition of his inner and outer world and fascinated by how they co-existed and also, I imagined, might have collided. And from all these threads, the characters emerged and, with them, the makings of their story.
Reviews:
- KIRKUS
Rudyard Kipling, living in rural Vermont, writes The Jungle Book and changes the destiny of his neighbors.
Vinton sets her first novel in the late-19th century and constructs it around the contrasting households of an emerging writer and a struggling immigrant farmer. Kipling and his proud, pregnant wife Carrie have arrived to build their dream house, Naulakha, on land adjacent to Jack Connolly’s small spread. Kipling, with his exotic background combining India and England, relishes the beauty and isolation of this remote location; Connolly, Irish and disappointed, fumes against and fears the harsh winter and his endlessly backbreaking, scarcely profitable work. The families interact through Addie Connolly, who does the Kiplings’ laundry, and Jack’s 11-year-old son Joe, who falls under the spell of Kipling’s whimsical inventiveness. A dreamy, sensitive boy, Joe is initially enchanted by the writer’s energy; when invited to advise on the story of Mowgli and his animal companions, he begins to identify with the fictional child. Winter closes in as Carrie – assisted by Addie – gives birth to a daughter, but Joe, having broken his leg in an accident, retreats a little from Kipling. In the spring, the writer asks Jack, an ex-railway man, to help dynamite some land. The combination of Jack’s slow-burning anger, Kipling’s distracting waywardness and Joe’s torn loyalties leads to another, more emotional explosion. Joe runs away from home, leaving the two couples to go their separate ways. Addie sees the wisdom of Joe’s absence and works to restore closeness with Jack; Kipling, simultaneously dominated and protected by Carrie, will achieve success but also experience great grief and loss. Vinton mines a rich vein of intensity whether writing about landscape and weather, or the soul-expanding possibilities of the creative life. While her characterizations can be overdrawn, especially those of the Kiplings, and the narrative oddly paced, the confident empathy of Vinton’s writing moves the story beyond its weak spots.
Another novel about a novelist, but radiantly colored, sensuous, respectful and rapt; an impressive debut. (First printing of 45,000. Agent: Maria Massie/InkWell Management)