The League of Berries & Laurels: Book the First - Introduction and First Chapter

Dear Reader,

The League of Berries & Laurels is a novel, whose first book has previously been serialized in The Rialto Books Review. The previously serialized material is now available as a standalone edition in print. I will be promoting the first chapter on Sundays in installments of roughly 1,000 words for the next ten to twelve weeks.

The book itself takes as its themes origination, collective identity, and the tension between significance and triviality, all focused through the lens of Illinois. I am deeply familiar with Illinois, as a place, and as a frustrated society. The notion of what it means to be an Illinoisan came to be of interest to me when I began to consider how obligingly we sustain the corruption of our politicians, how much of our denizens live in functional environments that fail to provide a sense of significance, history, or instruction, and how much economic and political power is yet contained within our borders. Many great people have come from Illinois or otherwise been influenced by her. But what, if anything, does Illinois innately contain that would account for its occasional greatness?

I have made several failed attempts at leaving Illinois. As it became clear that I would be required to first move through Illinois, if I ever was to depart it, exactly how Illinois, or any state, works, what it is, who are its people, and how a place with as much productive power could seem shallow in terms of its history and culture, when smaller, less productive places possess a legacy that dwarfs ours, became my curious preoccupation. A part of this book was cemented when, at estate sales I happened to wander into on an idle afternoon, I came across rooms which contained tchotchkes from a previous era, all of which were familiar to me, and indicative in some sense of Illinois, and looked upon them like they were the trapping of King Tut’s tomb, preserved purposely through long centuries, wondering “what is this?” What culture, or lack thereof, accounts for the sense of belonging and non-belonging that comes with being a denizen of a mundane state, which is shared in some measure by millions of my fellow Illinoisans. The League of Berries & Laurels is my attempt at contributing a minor mythology to the state, the greater Midwest, and the nation.

-Russell

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The League of Berries & Laurels

Book the First

Chapter 1

The fever broke seven days ago and through the night. Outside his window, the stillness perfect, black the sky, glints by moon cast tendered hallucination against the leaven snow. The morbid curiosity of a brother or sister, ushered away from the crack in the door by those same noises which now we hear, were then the only familiar sights. Throughout an interminable darkness, even the assurance of daybreak was lost deep in the dreamy fever. A hand pressing to the forehead, motherly encouragements to nibble sparingly at a cracker, and the passing of water from his father’s hand to his hands had been welcomer intrusions. Mostly was he left alone, alone and sick in bed. Who sledded past in ancient equipage; and what resolution looked up to where the boy observed the team’s delay, lingering before the animals were dashed, driven, restless as this fur-clad figure was to continue through the night? What shadow departed climbed from the escutcheon and scaled along in the golden wash of stones lit high atop the distant bell tower? Trees mingled their reaches in contest with its drawn saber, their movement ceasing when from the tower’s illuminated ledge the shadow leaped toward cornices less distinct, and the branches likewise quit their rapping on the window. What medicine was offered in a vial by beauty, speaking of how her shrouds were formed of vapor? It disintegrated near the touch of glass, as he reached wearily, and she slowly, until the beatific lips, articulating assurances, were the only brief remnant. How shaped these and more forgotten besides?

Nothing like the prism’s nebulous hours carried over through the next night, but still, unsteady and weak, and so bed-ridden, the family went in two shifts to mass this Sunday last, the other group staying behind to attend him. Church has been all but ruined. Never delighted in, the fact is it is ruined now. The every element, even the swell of the organ, and the leap of the vault, has lost its joy and leaves him crestfallen. One insufferable older brother, Eugene, now has a new authority Ulie lacks, and he makes this distinction between them all too clear. Only a handful of times has he had to watch the procession, unable to join in, in walking to the living ministers between the stained glass, but Ulie cannot stand it. His brother, receiving holy communion this one year before he will, returns, savoring it, and lords the sacrament over his sibling who was left behind with the children and divorced again.

The twins are both too doe-eyed and full of deference to understand the authority over Ulie the Church has given Eugene, or that Ulie, older when the twins were born than the twins are even now, has more subtle rights to authority than they. Soon, when they are able to perceive such distinctions, he will be able to vent his frustrations upon them, as all else do to Ulie. The Church, he thinks, is accountable for failing to provide anything he could use to distinguish himself from the twins by, or even from all of humanity. The twins and Ulie share only baptism. No memory coheres that moment in the font. No weekly ordeal clarifies the utility of learning and of good deeds accrued since the forehead was anointed and dried. Eugene explains much of his authority by rightly claiming the Catholic Church does not consider Ulie fit to receive the wafer. When once they sat together in the pew, and made games of copying the rhythms clapped on the bench by the other, oblivious to all else, now every service revolves around this reminder. He says the clergy may decide to not let Ulie partake at any stage in life, unless Eugene can prove Ulie’s example. It explains his greater share of snacks, as it does what media they consume; although, it is clear to Ulie, siblings older even than Eugene wield the greater power over either brother. In his room, with only the subtle changes of the day’s light, and the register of the atmosphere, to keep his mind busy, these issues grew more intricately proportioned. Much as he hoped, no day of school was even missed, and so he duly went about attempting to recapture the fever, retracing every step, using every door he used the week prior, even going so far as to cultivate his saliva in dishes hidden about his room . The visions did help pass the week somewhat faster. When those that rushed to where their stricken classmate had fallen out his chair saw him at school again, looking markedly improved, considering the rumors spread by that day’s end, gathered they all and demanded to know of him how the weekend was survived.

As a prelude to our best intent, that will do. The now despised noise of parents rouse a minion of the darkness, immersed in slumber, casting a terrible wash of light into the room as they enter, from which the dissembled face withdraws into ampler comforter. Those folds of momentary respite are thrown clear from the bed to reveal no more than a boy in his entirety, where once before was a being far more gargoyle. The so revealed, pleading minutes more, was awoken and told to pull on the clothes laid out for him, quickly, despite his protestations, which went entirely unheeded by either parent, or both, if both happened to be in his room at the same moment. Grumbling somewhat, and with the conviction his sartorial self was nary taken into account - like always, it seems - he trudged down the stairs, his manner not quite in keeping with the selection still groggily being fought, struggled with, and ultimately buttoned. His siblings, more powerful than him by far, or his younger, rush up past him, or excuse themselves sweetly as they pass beside him, scampering off from the foyer before he sees. In a confused house, a list of chores, wisely apportioned, keep straight the operations of the day to day. The one scheduled for him, and never to be forgotten, took him to the garage, heavily encumbered with a rotting heap, the black bag dragged to beside the bin, and hoisted upwards, and pushed from below, until it fell down the metal canister. A grapefruit and his least favorite breakfast he devoured at the counter atop a stool once he had returned.