The good thief

Review by New York Times Review

HANNAH TINTI'S first novel, "The Good Thief," opens at a Catholic orphanage in New England, where the statue of St. Anthony in the courtyard can't help the boys recover what they've lost. Ren, the book's hero, is missing not only his family but also his left hand, the skin mysteriously sewn up at the wrist. Passed over for adoption because of the lost hand, Ren begins stealing small objects as recompense. The novel is set in the mid-19th century, with Indians being fought in the West. When Ren is 11, an ex-soldier named Benjamin Nab arrives at St. Anthony's and chooses Ren from all the other boys. Nab describes to the priests a brutal Indian attack, during which his mother cut off his baby brother's hand while trying to rescue him. As proof, he produces his parents' scalps, like holy relics. Ren, who craves a family, believes it all, but Nab turns out to be a liar, a deserter and a con artist. A damaged boy who can induce pity is gold to him. They join Nab's drunken colleague, Tom, and Ren finds that their surest means of support is robbing graves. Tinti's New England is not exactly the one we know, and when the three make their way to a town called North Umbrage, things get wild and strange. Ren clings to Nab for survival, while their small band grows to include a resurrected murderer, a towering deaf landlady, a pair of unlucky twins and a dwarf who comes down a chimney at night, like a figure in a fairy tale. North Umbrage, as its name suggests, is a place of darkness and grievance. The former mining town is one enormous graveyard: the mine's entrance collapsed in an explosion, trapping the men, leaving widows whose husbands are buried beneath their feet. An opportunistic tyrant named McGinty has taken over, running a gang of enforcers called "hat boys" because they wear top hats and porkpies. He's also built a mousetrap factory and staffed it with a semi-captive labor force of unmarriageable girls. The plot is Dickensian, and so are some of the names, but the style isn't. Tinti's prose is straightforward and measured, with none of Dickens's baroque whimsy. On Ren's education at the orphanage: "It had been decided that the brothers must give the children some knowledge; at the very least enough language to read the Bible, and enough arithmetic so that the Protestants could not cheat them. Why this task of education was given to Brother Peter the boys did not know, for more often than not he would simply rest his forehead on the table before him and ignore the children completely. Much of what the boys had learned had been transferred from child to child like a disease, and mostly concerned bits of New England history: minutemen and the North Bridge, Giles Corey and Crispus Attucks." The effect of Tinti's steady, authoritative style is to make odd and extraordinary events seem natural: if she says there are hat boys and mousetrap girls, there are. And because of the seeming transparency of the narrator, we experience the world as Ren does, and feel his fear, unfiltered, when he's left alone with a wagonload of corpses and one of them sits up. Writing for adults while keeping to a child's perspective isn't easy, and Tinti makes it look effortless. AND it is a book for adults, in addition to being the kind of story that might have kept you reading all day when you were home sick from school. It's about the nature of family - Ren's band of outlaws turns out to be more sustaining than the family he longed for - but it's also about the nature of storytelling, about invention's claims on the truth. Tinti's first book, the story collection "Animal Crackers," was full of improbable circumstances in which lurked the inevitable and resonant and real. In "The Good Thief," Tinti is lavish with her storytelling gifts - which are prodigious - and hands them off to the fabulist Benjamin Nab every time he's in trouble. Ren is a bad liar, but he begins to recognize the way Nab's stories work, and finally tells one of his own, to save himself. In his wildest invention, Ren stumbles on an unexpected truth. That moment of discovery is its own argument for writing fiction, and the truth Ren uncovers provides an anchor for the book. But what matters to Tinti - as to Nab - is the boldness and dash of the story. You can't push too hard at the logic of some of the novel's events, but you wouldn't want to: they're there for the mystery, for the beauty and terror of the images, and for the way they appeal to desire in their audience. After a particularly grim answer to one of Ren's questions, Benjamin Nab asks him, "'Is that what you wanted to hear?'" "'No,'" Ren says. "'Well,'" Nab says, "'that's when you know it's the truth.'" Tinti's cast includes a resurrected murderer, a deaf landlady and a pair of unlucky twins. Maile Meloy's new collection of stories, "Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It," will be published next summer.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]

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Review by Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Ren doesn't know how he lost his hand, who his parents are, or how he arrived at St. Anthony's, a prisonlike orphanage. Certain that no one will ever adopt him, he takes secret revenge on those who beat and torment him by stealing. Then Benjamin Nab appears, claiming Ren as his long-lost younger brother. Off they go, and Ren, a marvelously plucky narrator, is ecstatic. But his savior turns out to be a con man given to diabolical and grotesque endeavors. It's a ghoulish and violent world right out of the most nihilistic fairy tales, with shades of Dickens and Deadwood. Set in a decimated nineteenth-century New England town ruled by the owner of a mousetrap factory, Tinti's shivery tale features an otherworldly cast of characters. Each is caught in a snare of some sort and must figure out how to get free. Tinti revealed her macabre sensibility in her story collection, Animal Crackers (2004). In her highly original debut novel, she renders the horrors and wonders she concocts utterly believable and rich in implication as she creates a darkly comedic and bewitching, sinister yet life-affirming tale about the eternal battle between good and evil.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2008 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

William Dufris handles this book as it was intended-as a sendup of several genres. He brings to life Tinti's family of orphans, grave robbers, scam artists, drunks and assorted freaks, narrating as though telling terrifying tales to Boy Scouts around a campfire. His children are squeaky-voiced, his adults harsh and raspy. He moves easily through successions of melodramatic scenes alternately ghoulish, maudlin, violent, gothic and hokey. Adults who love high camp and young adults who savor tales of blood and gore will eat it up. A Dial hardcover. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

In 19th-century New England, young Ren is glad to be rescued from the orphanage by Benjamin Nab, but is Benjamin really his brother? From the author of the popular collection Animal Crackers; reading group guide. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

In this dark but rousing 19th-century picaresque about a one-handed orphan who falls in with rogues, Tinti (stories: Animal Crackers, 2004) pays homage to 19th-century biggies, particularly Twain, Dickens and Stevenson, creating a fictional world unique yet hauntingly familiar. Abandoned as a baby wearing a jacket with the initials REN sewn in the collar, 12-year-old Ren lives in St. Anthony's monastery until a man arrives and claims him as his long-lost brother. Benjamin Nab is a small-time swindler/crook of all mistrades who sees Ren's handicap as a useful conning tool. That Ren is also a natural thief, despite his devout Catholicism (he steals The Lives of the Saints), is a bonus. Soon Benjamin and his partner Tom, a former schoolteacher and erudite drunk, take Ren to grim North Umbrage, a former mining town where the only employer is a mousetrap factory run by the tyrant McGinty. Tom, Benjamin and Ren board with a stern but soft-hearted widow whose well-read dwarf brother lives on her roof, dropping through the chimney daily for his supper. The men strike a lucrative deal with a local surgeon to steal bodies, and for a while life is good. While charming, untrustworthy Benjamin (picture Johnny Depp) spins one tale after another to get his crew out of scrapes, Ren picks up pieces of Benjamin and Tom's sad true stories. Tom, who turned to crime out of guilt over his best friend's suicide, adopts Ren's twin best friends from the monastery and brings them into the band, along with Dolly, the gentle giant and hired killer who the grave robbers discover has been buried prematurely. The tale darkens after McGinty's vicious henchmen catch the thieves in the cemetery. McGinty frees the other but keeps Ren, claiming he is actually the rich man's bastard nephew whom McGinty blames for his sister's death. As more facts come out, Ren learns his true identity. Marvelously satisfying hokum, rich with sensory details, surprising twists and living, breathing characters to root for. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Chapter One The man arrived after morning prayers. Word spread quickly that someone had come, and the boys of Saint Anthony's elbowed each other and strained to catch a glimpse as he unhitched his horse and led it to the trough for drinking. The man's face was hard to make out, his hat pulled so far down that the brim nearly touched his nose. He tied the reins to a post and then stood there, patting the horse's neck as it drank. The man waited, and the boys watched, and when the mare finally lifted its head, they saw the man lean forward, stroke the animal's nose, and kiss it. Then he wiped his lips with the back of his hand, removed his hat, and made his way across the yard to the monastery. Men often came for children. Sometimes it was for cheap labor, sometimes for a sense of doing good. The brothers of Saint Anthony's would stand the orphans in a line, and the men would walk back and forth, inspecting. It was easy to tell what they were looking for by where their eyes went. Usually it was to boys almost fourteen, the taller ones, the loudest, the strongest. Then their eyes went down to the barely crawling, the stumbling two-year-olds--still untainted and fresh. This left the in-betweens-- those who had lost their baby fat and curls but were not yet old enough to be helpful. These children were usually ill-tempered and had little to offer but lice and a bad case of the measles. Ren was one of them. He had no memory of a beginning--of a mother or father, sister or brother. His life was simply there, at Saint Anthony's, and what he remembered began in the middle of things--the smell of boiled sheets and lye; the taste of watery oatmeal; the feel of dropping a brick onto a piece of stone, watching the red pieces split off, then using those broken shards to write on the wall of the monastery, and being slapped for this, and being forced to wash the dust away with a cold, wet rag. Ren's name had been sewn into the collar of his nightshirt: three letters embroidered in dark blue thread. The cloth was made of good linen, and he had worn it until he was nearly two. After that it was taken away and given to a smaller child to wear. Ren learned to keep an eye on Edward, then James, then Nicholas--and corner them in the yard. He would pin the squirming child to the ground and examine the fading letters closely, wondering what kind of hand had worked them. The R and E were sewn boldly in a cross-stitch, but the N was thinner, slanting to the right, as if the person working the thread had rushed to complete the job. When the shirt wore thin, it was cut into bandages. Brother Joseph gave Ren the piece of collar with the letters, and the boy kept it underneath his pillow at night. Ren watched now as the visitor waited on the steps of the priory. The man passed his hat back and forth in his hands, leaving damp marks along the felt. The door opened and he stepped inside. A few minutes later Brother Joseph came to gather the children, and said, "Get to the statue." The statue of Saint Anthony sat in the center of the yard. It was carved from marble, dressed in the robes of the Franciscan friars. The dome of Saint Anthony's head was bald, with a halo circling his brow. In one hand he held a lily and in the other a small child wearing a crown. The child was holding out one palm in supplication and using the other to touch the saint's cheek. There were times, when the sun receded in the afternoon and shadows played across the stone, that the touch looked more like a slap. This child was Jesus Christ, and the pairing was proof of Saint Anthony's ability to carry messages to God. When a loaf of bread went missing from the kitchen, or Father John couldn't find the keys to the chapel, the children were sent to the statue. Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, come bring what I've lost back to me. Catholics were rare in this part of New England. A local Irishman who'd made a fortune pressing cheap grapes into strong port had left his vineyard to the church in a desperate bid for heaven before he died. The brothers of Saint Anthony were sent to claim the land and build the monastery. They found themselves surrounded by Protestants, who, in the first month of their arrival, burned down the barn, fouled the well, and caught two brothers after dark on the road and sent them home tarred and feathered. After praying for guidance, the brothers turned to the Irishman's winepress, which was still intact and on the grounds. Plants were sent from Italy, and after some trial and error the brothers matched the right vine with their stony New England soil. Before long Saint Anthony's became well-known for their particular vintage, which they aged in old wooden casks and used for their morning and evening masses. The unconsecrated wine was sold to the local taverns and also to individual landowners, who sent their servants to collect the bottles in the night so that their neighbors would not see them doing business with Catholics. Soon after this the first child was left. Brother Joseph heard cries one morning before sunrise and opened the door to find a baby wrapped in a soiled dress. The second child was left in a bucket near the well. The third in a basket by the outhouse. Girls were collected every few months by the Sisters of Charity, who worked in a hospital some distance away. What happened to them, no one knew, but the boys were left at Saint Anthony's, and before long the monastery had turned into a de facto orphanage for the bastard children of the local townspeople, who still occasionally tried to burn the place to the ground. To control these attempts at arson, the brothers built a high brick wall around the property, which sloped and towered like a fortress along the road. At the bottom of the wooden gate that served as the entrance they cut a small swinging door, and it was through this tiny opening that the babies were pushed. Ren was told that he, too, had been pushed through this gate and found the following morning, covered in mud in the prior's garden. It had rained the night before, and although Ren had no memory of the storm, he often wondered why he had been left in bad weather. It always led to the same conclusion: that whoever had dropped him off could not wait to be rid of him. The gate was hinged to open one way--in. When Ren pushed at the tiny door with his finger, he could feel the strength of the wooden frame behind it. There was no handle on the children's side, no groove to lift from underneath. The wood was heavy, thick, and old--a fine piece of oak planed years before from the woods beyond the orphanage. Ren liked to imagine he felt a pressure in return, a mother reaching back through, changing her mind, groping wildly, a thin white arm. ••• Underneath Saint Anthony's statue the younger boys fidgeted and pushed, the older ones cleared their throats nervously. Brother Joseph walked down the line and straightened their clothes, or spit on his hand and scrubbed their faces, bumping his large stomach into the children who had fallen out of place. He pushed it now toward a six-year-old who had suddenly sprung a bloody nose from the excitement. "Hide it quick," he said, shielding the boy with his body. Across the yard Father John was solemnly approaching, and behind him was the man who had kissed the horse. He was a farmer. Perhaps forty years old. His shoulders were strong, his fingers thick with calluses, his skin the color of rawhide from the sun. There was a rash of brown spots across his forehead and the backs of his hands. His face was not unkind, and his coat was clean, his shirt pressed white, his collar tight against his neck. A woman had dressed him. So there would be a wife. A mother. The man began to make his way down the line. He paused before two blond boys, Brom and Ichy. They were also in- betweens, twins left three winters after Ren. Brom's neck was thicker, by about two inches, and Ichy's feet were longer, by about two inches, but beyond those distinguishing characteristics it was hard to tell the boys apart when they were standing still. It was only when they were out in the fields working, or throwing stones at a pine tree, or washing their faces in the morning that the differences became clear. Brom would splash a handful of water over his head and be done with it. Ichy would fold a handkerchief into fourths, dab it into the basin, then set to work carefully and slowly behind his ears. It was said that no one would adopt Brom and Ichy because they were twins. One was sure to be unlucky. Second-borns were usually considered changelings and drowned right after birth. But no one knew who came first, Brom or Ichy, so there was no way to tell where the bad luck was coming from. What the brothers needed to do was separate, make themselves look as different as possible. Ren kept this information to himself. They were his only friends, and he did not want to lose them. Standing together now the twins grinned at the farmer, and then, suddenly, Brom threw his arms around his brother and attempted to lift him off the ground. He had done this once before, as a show of strength in front of two elderly gentlemen, and it had ended badly. Ren watched from the other end of the line as Ichy, taken by surprise, began to recite his multiplication tables, all the while struggling violently against his brother, to the point that one of his boots flew into the air and sailed past the farmer's ear. Father John kept a small switch up the sleeve of his robe, and he put it to work now on the twins, while Brother Joseph fetched Ichy's boot and the farmer continued down the line. Ren put his arms behind his back and stood at attention. He held his breath as the man stopped in front of him. "How old are you?" Ren opened his mouth to answer, but the man spoke for him. "You look about twelve." Ren wanted to say that he could be any age, that he could make himself into anything the man wanted, but instead he followed what he had been taught by the brothers, and said nothing. "I want a boy," said the farmer. "Old enough to help me work and young enough for my wife to feel she has a child. Someone who's honest and willing to learn. Someone who can be a son to us." He leaned forward and lowered his voice so that only Ren could hear him. "Do you think you could do that?" Father John came up behind them. "You don't want that one." Excerpted from The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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