Squirrels in the Wall―a novel told in stories by a collection of interspecies voices―presents a unique and darkly hilarious blend of human and animal perspectives in a single setting on a Wisconsin lake. The stories provide a kaleidoscope of heartbreak among both human and animal characters as they confront abuse and death. You can read an amazing review here: https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/12/03/oakland-author-henry-hitz-talks-squirrels-his-interspecies-romp-of-a-novel/
Here is an excerpt from one of the stories, “Turtle Bay,” which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize:
The collapse of your second marriage has left you feeling numb, wandering around in a fog, unable to think, or feel, or do much of anything. You left her, so you don’t really have a place to stay. You impose upon your friend Matt for a while, but it’s clear you are in the way of his complicated marriage. You decide to leave the Bay Area and head back east.
You collect some supplies and hole up inside your Toyota camper, hauling your camper shell on your back, complete with bed, refrigerator, stove, stereo, library. You wear nothing but turtleneck sweaters even though it’s summer, you drive, slowly – very slowly, out of California, across the country, stopping only every other day or so when the white line begins to blur, camping by the side of the road, all the way to Pike Lake, your ancestral home in exurban Wisconsin.
You allow yourself two months to recuperate before you will have to return to your job as a writer for an environmental magazine. After a brief tour of the place to find your old haunts: the boathouse, your shack of a hideout, your dank mad-scientist laboratory in the basement, you hibernate in your old room, your childhood room, with walls and ceiling of manly knotty pine.
You expect your father to be mad like he was the first time, when you left your first wife, the mother of your children, ten years ago. He said to you over the phone: “Divorce, revolution, suicide, it’s all the same thing.” This time he says, “Your generation is more honest than ours was. I don’t know of too many of us who were completely monogamous.”
You don’t want to know more. You clam up. You do feel like a clam, a shell-shocked shell of a man, a clam whose body has been sucked up clean out of its shell by carnivorous parasites. There are traces of your ex everywhere in your old room, left from your visits here as a couple, ceramic elephants on the window sill, Victoria Holt novels in the book shelves.
You expect to crash, to freefall into the abyss of despair, and you are prepared for this, you look forward to crying it all out, but the tears don’t come, instead, there is just a sublime peace, an exhilarating sense of freedom, and a clammy emptiness.
You sleep for days. No one bothers you. When you finally do emerge from hibernation, you resemble a zombie from one of those “living dead” movies. You can’t feel a thing. It frightens you. To get out of the house one calm evening when the forests surrounding the lake glow yellow in the sunset, you take your father’s old hand—made lapstrake rowboat (he once gave it to you, but you still think of it as his). You row all the way to the north end of the lake, Turtle Bay. The boat fills with water up to your lower calves. You see that the bay looks different. The oak forests between the lake and the newish superhighway have been cut down. There is a monstrous barge anchored in the center of the bay, piled high with weeds and mud.
When you get back to the house, you ask your father what is going on.
“Oh, you ‘re talking about a big brouhaha there,” he says. “Old man Melieren thinks he is developing a fancy sportfishing resort on his property. The Village fathers, you know they ‘ve spent their lives insuring the exclusivity of their domain on this lake, are not pleased. He challenged their ordinance against commercial development on the lake in court. He won.”
“That’s it? Isn’t anyone doing anything?”
“There ‘ve been appeals, but he’s got a lot of money and some powerful allies.”
You remember the rumors. Your friend Carl used to help spread them. Melieren was a reclusive old German who owned a blender manufacturing company in Milwaukee which was reputed to have built some of Hitler’s gas ovens during the war. There was also talk of Chicago gangland connections, and you remember as a child seeing bullet holes after a shooting in one of the houses on his vast estate.
You learn that the alignment of forces in this present battle is far from simple. The working-class fishing interests who want more public access to the lake and the unions who want the jobs and hate all Pike Lakers – Milwaukee’s power elite – equally, are pushing for the resort. The powerful state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) at first went to bat for the resort advocates, until an enterprising naturalist discovered a rare spotted turtle (clemmys guttata) an endangered species — in the marshes around the edge of the bay.
Your father tells you that the DNR has called a hearing on the issue which will take place the first week you are here, but Melieren has already started dredging the bay, apparently so he can have a fait accompli before the hearing has a chance to rule. This is the barge you saw, a dredge.
With nothing better to do, you go with your father to the hearing. Personally, you are torn. You certainly sympathize with the turtles, but the exclusivity of the Pike Lake snobs turns your stomach. This latter group uses the turtle issue, but they kill these same turtles elsewhere in the lake when they spray the weeds with defoliants to improve the swimming near their own lake frontages.
At the meeting, you see childhood acquaintances now grown, playing out their roles. You’ve seen none of these people for years. Ted is here, balding, a high-powered lawyer, representing the Village. Your old heart throb Maggie – Ted’s sister – now fat and domestic, has organized a contingent of residents. “Well hello, Barney,” she says. Her voice is chilly, as is that of the others. You have learned to recognize the tone, something like: “How could you marry a black woman and embarrass your family so.” You don’t go out of your way to tell any of them you’ve separated. They’d be too obviously pleased.
Your father surprises you by speaking at the meeting. He actually gives voice to reason. “As an old fisherman myself, I can understand the need for lake access. But a resort is likely to bring the power boats and the jet skis, which won’t help the fishing at all. May I suggest a compromise, a smaller scale public access, without the controversial resort?”
From the silence of the crowd, it is clear that this viewpoint has pleased no one.
The hearing issues a weak decision which gives Melieren ten days to cease-and-desist his dredging operation, plenty of time to complete the job.
On the way home that night, silence once more prevails between your father and you. On the superhighway, right where you can see Turtle Bay through the newly thinned trees, you spot a small animal in your headlights, a turtle, laboriously crossing the road. You brake and swerve to miss it, but you fail, and it squishes against the tire of your camper truck. You feel something jump into your ear.
3.
All night long, your ear itches.
In the morning, you hear the voice for the first time.
“Hello, Barney.”
You twist around in your bed looking for the source of the voice.
“My name is Slrp. I will be your teacher.”
Oh-oh, you think. You stay in bed that day, knowing that you are losing your grip, and that there’s nothing you can do about it.
“I am a turtle who has left my body, the very body that you yourself smeared all over the road with your truck. To be fair, we planned this assault on your kind. Our situation is exceedingly desperate, and we need your help. I ‘m afraid you will have to help us whether you want to or not. No more passivity for the likes of you.”
Henry Hitz laces this riveting, thought provoking journey, Squirrels in the Wall, with dollops of juicy humor. Dogs, bees, a fox, humans, turtles, and other assorted critters–both dead and alive–all ponder, question, and wonder about that line blurring life and death. “Life is death’s dream?” Under the masterful hand of Mr. Hitz, we are in for a thoroughly enjoyable and informative read.
–Francine Thomas Howard, author of two Amazon bestsellers: Page from a Tennessee Journal, and The Duke of Union County
