NECTAR

A backwoods Maine family is ravaged by the fallout from deception and infidelity in Fickett's debut novel, a poignant but overplotted multigenerational saga that begins when young Caleb Gilley returns to the family homestead to bury his mother's lover and his beloved surrogate father, Duffy Pendleton, after the older man dies. Caleb's mother, Regina Merritt, has spent most of her life trying to deal with the mistake she made by not marrying Duffy, her childhood sweetheart. Ginny paid for her error in blood, sweat and tears when she chose instead to cast her lot with Henry Gilley, a high-minded but ineffectual farmer with big dreams who collapsed into alcoholism and deserted his family before Caleb's birth. Fiercely determined to achieve her dreams of prosperity, Ginny scratched out a living by keeping bees, farming and opening a cafe in her small village, but the libidinous arrangement she makes to get the money for the cafe has tragic consequences for her oldest daughter, Edith, who spitefully uses her knowledge of Ginny's sexual bargain to gain the upper hand in a running battle with her mother. Meanwhile, Caleb keeps hoping that Duffy is his real father, and his eventual discovery makes a dramatic climax. Fickett is a fine craftsman whose strength is his character writing and the compassion he displays for his decidedly flawed cast, but the scope of his narrative and the number of subplots he chronicles sometimes makes this book seem a bit like a backwoods soap opera. Despite that busyness, there are stretches that recall the early work of Carolyn Chute (minus the grotesque humor), a reference that bodes well for Fickett's future as a novelist. Agent, Jean Grosjean. (May)