Born With“Broken Heartstrings”

By Richard “Chip” Schrader
Book Review Editor

The line from page one of Wayne C. Perreault’s novel Broken Heartstrings: “In the tomblike silence inside, Father Madeiras padded slowly beneath the windows of the shadowed nave,” sets the tone for the rest of the novel that takes place in a small New England mill town that is haunted with the very ghosts you’d only expect from one of Faulkner’s equals.
An abusive priest, a brutal Greek patriarch, and a local doctor are the opening players in this skeleton laden small town. They make a pact to help pull off a scheme to cover up a scandal that would surely jar the town to its foundation, and be the end of their good friend.
In Broken Heartstrings, Perreault extends the gothic American milieu into Post-Vietnam New England. The narrator, Ashton, is a home coming Vietnam Vet facing a nation that shows disdain toward the war and the people who fought it, and he steps into his home to a defeated mother and combative father only to realize he wants that to be in his past.
Like any small town, everybody knows nearly everything about everyone. Perreault has a deep understanding of this dynamic as Ashton (Ash) finds himself out of favor with many women’s families for what his father might have done twenty years ago.
Then along comes Evangeline, the small town beauty all grown up and decked out in nylons and a dress suit working as a secretary where Ash grinds his days away as a laborer, and drinks through his debaucheries of the night life. But, he has met his match through an unusual courtship with this Greek woman of mythical beauty.
A major hitch in his designs emerge when he finds a Marine Veteran stands in the way already claiming this bombshell as his current fling, but Ash sees more than just a few evenings of fun as he falls in love with Evangeline. Even though he gets caught in a love triangle commonly found in fiction, the angle from which Perreault depicts it is unique, and the confrontation that ends the triangle is too original and funny to give away.
Marriage and children grace their lives and appear to create a familial union that shatters the preoccupation with Ash’s non-Greek heritage. But, the relationships is again tested with a loss that deeply wounds Evangeline, and Ash as he can only observe a woman who has fallen from his reach with grief. The pathos is played evenly within these pages and never glides into the melodramatic droning that tempts many authors.
Soon Ash finds that Evangeline too, has inherited an unforgivable family history, a well kept secret that gets exposed during a court case involving Evangeline’s family estate. The effect it has on the players of this drama unfolds before our very eyes and heightens the drama to tragedy. This piece of the saga consists of the final chapters of the novel, and brings the reader to realize that life itself is a series of trials.
The romance and the character of Ash are what Hemingway would have written if he had emerged from Vietnam and came from small town New England. The characters are tough, cool, and heartbroken and the marriage is stricken with loss and interfamilial conflict. All the while, Perreault has honed his own style while unmistakably being influenced by the twentieth century’s best writers in this treat of a novel.
Anybody looking for something more than the mass produced novels the mainstream publishers crank out should give Broken Heartstrings a read. It is provocative, funny, emotional, and tightly written without the sacrifice of detail. This book is a fine representative of the storytelling that our independent press has to offer, and proves how relevant the small press really is.
Photo caption: Cover of Wayne C. Perreault’s novel Broken Heartstrings. (Courtesy photo)