Laban Carrick Hill
“I have now declared myself Poet Laureate of the Salmon Hole just below the Winooski Dam. I’m thinking about declaring myself music director as well. Perhaps I put up a plaque.” Laban Hill, March 20, 2016 Laban Hill, the father, author, performer, friend; the teacher, brother, colleague; the son, neighbor, citizen, poet and person, died in his home on February 15, 2021, in Winooski, Vt., at age 60. He is remembered dearly by his family, daughters Natalie and Ella, ex-wife Elise Whittemore, sister Susan Pfau and mother Kay Colby. Laban was a first and foremost a storyteller. Here’s a story about Laban.
In Robert Gipe’s new illustrated novel,
Pop, we return to Dawn, who was a central character of
Trampoline and
Weedeater, Gipe’s previous books in the series. Now in her 30s and back in fictional Canard County in rural Eastern Kentucky, this last installment in the trilogy picks up during the 2016 presidential election.
Dawn enlists the help of two other storytellers: her daughter Nicolette and her uncle Hubert. Because, as she puts it, “The story we are going to tell you is hard.”
Gipe’s style seems to be the right way to tell it. The novel is a quilt of short vignettes narrated by three distinct voices, each dryly witty, painfully clear-eyed, and heartbreakingly sincere. Each chapter is introduced by his signature loopy illustrations, lanky Nicolette in her oversized beanie, Dawn beneath a mop of tangled hair, and Hubert with his belly sticking out from beneath an old T-shirt.