Picture a small deep pond in the forest and watching a pebble drop into the water to slowly sink downward. The ripples of water quietly and subtly move outward constrained by the near boundaries of the edges of the pool. Kings of the Earth, like the pebble in a small pond, is rooted in a narrow landscape starkly portrayed with carefully chosen language and details. The novel, by Jon Clinch, starts with a single incident, a single pebble dropping. One of three elderly brothers dies and from there the circles flow outward. Audie Proctor wakes up in the bed he has shared with his two brothers his entire life and discovers his brother Vernon is dead. The state police suspect that the third brother, Creed, has killed him.
Clinch bases his novel on a real incident, the subject of a documentary, profiling a case with overzealous police against an unsophisticated suspect. Clinch also uses his knowledge of upstate New York, where the original incident and the novel takes place, to augment the story and delve deep into family relationships and responsibilities. Using short chapters that vary in narrator and in time, we learn the story of the Proctor brothers who live on their family’s ramshackle, impoverished farm. Aside from Creed’s service in the army, the brothers’ world is very insular, confined psychologically by their simplistic viewpoint and physically by the distance they can walk or, on rare occasions, drive their tractor. The circle of people they relate to is also very small consisting of their sister Donna and her family, and their nearest neighbors, Margaret and Preston who are beacons of compassion and neighborliness.
All this sounds like it could be claustrophobic and confining and yet Clinch takes the reader, with quiet subtlety, deeper and deeper into the psyche of these brothers and their relationship with each other and the piece of earth they call their own. The reader comes away with a strong sense of both the mental and physical landscape. The novel also contains a side story of Donna’s son which at first seems extraneous as it takes the reader away from the narrow scope outlined by the author but eventually all roads lead back to the center, the Proctor farm.
Kings of the Earth is a subtle novel rooted in surroundings of poverty and need. It also has moments of compassion and love. Some readers may find the novel bleak and confining, distressing in its portrayal of squalid living conditions and flashes of violence. Others will enjoy the carefully drawn portrait of a family held together by bonds deeper than the earth.
Reflections from the Hinterland 
Very nice review. I’m glad you enjoyed this one.
[…] Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch This is a book that stays with you, one that goes very deep in a very small pool, one that points out the human being in each and every person. This is a story about three elderly brothers in upstate New York, uneducated, poor, marginalized and what happens when one of the brothers dies. And it is a story of the differences between the brothers and those around them. And it is a story of our own humanity.One of the very best reviews/thoughts on this book can be found on The Reading Ape where The Ape writes, “And perhaps that’s what Kings of the Earth offered me: a way of seeing Gilberto (a homeless person) and not flinching, of acknowledging his existence and his death without sentimentalizing or marginalizing him. He was here, and he was one of us. That’s not the best I can do, but it’s all I can do now. “ […]
[…] adored Jon Clinch’s book Kings of the Earth (my review can be found here) but I never managed to pick-up his first book Finn (which is about Huckleberry’ Finn’s […]