Summary | Author | Book Reviews | Discussion Questions


All That I Have
Castle Freeman, Jr., 2009
Steerforth Press
176 pp.

In Brief
In this gripping, wise, and darkly funny tale of suspense, Sheriff Lucian Wing confronts a series of trials that test his work, his marriage, and the settled order of his life.
      
Wing is an experienced, practical man who enforces the law in his corner of Vermont with a steady hand and a generous tolerance. Things are not as they should be, however, in the sheriff’s small, protected domain. The outside world draws near, and threats multiply: the arrival in the district of a band of exotic, major league criminals; an ambitious and aggressive deputy; the self-destructive exploits of a local bad boy; Wing’s discovery of a domestic crisis. The sheriff’s response to these diverse challenges calls on all the personal resources he has cultivated during his working life: patience, tact, and (especially) humor. (From the publisher.)

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About the Author
Castle Freeman Jr. is the award-winning author of five previous books, including most recently the novel Go With Me. He has been a regular essayist for The Old Farmer’s Almanac since 1982 and is also a contributor to Vermont Life magazine. He lives in Newfane, Vermont. (From the publisher.)

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Critics Say. . .
Serving of Vermont wit and wisdom, with a modicum of crime solving on the side. . . . though it's not the suspense but the sly, country-cousin charm of Freeman's storytelling that is the main attraction.
Boston Globe


An "absorbing yarn from a writer shrewd with the delayed reveal and deft with his lean, tidy sentences. The novel's 20 short chapters fit as snugly as Lincoln logs, and its dialogue zings with a sly Elmore Leonard lilt/
Cleveland Plain Dealer


The wit, humor and keen ear for dialogue Freeman's fans have come to relish. . . an absorbing, suspenseful gem of a novel.
Portsmouth Herald


An original voice... I had no idea what I was missing. Sean Duke, the Cossacks and the Sweetheart of Sigma Chi are just part of the pack barking at the end of the drive. Their voices, and Freeman's, illuminate a marvelous novel.
Oregonian


Sheriff Lucian Wing, the narrator of Freeman's wonderfully wry fourth novel, is a laconic, old-fashioned lawman who discovers an outpost of nefarious Russians in his sleepy Vermont county. Wing's Fargo-esque delivery is hysterical, but what makes this spare tale a standout is Freeman's keen ear for dialogue and his affection for the quietly complex characters of small-town life.
People Magazine


(Starred review.)Freeman's pleasantly wicked fourth novel (after Go with Me), set in smalltown rural Vermont, explores the moral choices of a good-hearted, meek sheriff. The laconic and gently self-deprecating sheriff, Lucian Wing, a middle-aged ex-navyman married to a prominent lawyer's daughter, has to decide whether to arrest a young ne'er do well who has broken into an opulent home owned by mysterious Russians and stolen a safe. The problem is that Wing feels for the young criminal, Sean Duke, who works as a laborer, has a winning way with the ladies and is known for his wild behavior. The childless sheriff regards the kid as a kind of bad-boy substitute son and knows that if he doesn't spirit Duke out of town, the Russians will get him first. Meanwhile, Sean makes inroads into the sheriff's chilly marriage, bringing Wing to a crisis of conscience. Freeman sets an intertwined network of provincial egos on a collision course and pulls it off through the wonderfully satisfying point of view of his deadpan sheriff.
Publishers Weekly

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Book Club Discussion Questions

Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

   • Generic Discussion Questions
   • Read-Think-Talk About a Book

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to at help get a discussion started for All That I Have:

1. What are the domestic tensions between Wing and his wife, Clemmie? Would you imagine they're typical of a law officer's marriage? How do the two negotiate their way through their marital problems? Did you enjoy their bantering... find it humorous, tiresome, realistic... wish-I-could-say-that?

2. At one point Wing says, "In sheriffing you don't stop things from happening. You know you can't do that mostly, so you don't try. People are going to do what they're going to do. You let things happen." How effective is that as a philosophy of law & order? Doesn't it risk a certain fatalism or passivity?

3. Talk about Wingate, Wing's mentor, who appeared in the Castle's previous novel, Go With Me, and although older, also figures in this work as well. What are some of the things Wing learns or learned from him?

4. If you've read, Go With Me, by the way, how do you compare the two books?

5. What about Sean Duke? How fitting a nickname is Superboy and how did he earn it. Uh, how super is he?

6. Castle Freeman has an eye and ear for swagger and hypocrisy—not suffering fools gladly. Who are his targets as hypocrits in All That I Have?

7. Freeman is playing here with a favorite fictional trope: the slow-to-move, slow-to-burn, dead-pan law-officer, who seems "out-gunned" by his opponents—but who ends up getting the best of smarter, well-organized, vicious criminals. First—trace Wing's steps as he gradually unwinds the clues, then winds his way to victory. Second—can you think of other books, movies, and TV serials that have played on this irony?

8. This book has often been compared to Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. Have you read that work, and what comparisons/contrasts do you see?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)