A Far Country

A peculiar Sunday smell, the faint rustle of silk, and Dr. Pound’s endless words to the Lord: these are among Hugh Paret’s first memories. What could a boy’s restless dreams survive in a world that treats aspiration as something to suppress?

Looking back on his boyhood in late nineteenth-century America, Hugh recalls a river city changing around him, a devout family, and long hours in the stiff pew of the First Presbyterian Church. His father, a successful lawyer, embodies a stern Calvinism that makes righteousness feel more like punishment than joy. Hugh’s own desires surge without direction; as he grows up, the hopeful boy he remembers seems to fade, replaced by a stranger. Now a corporation lawyer, he sets out to examine the passions, choices, and inherited beliefs that made him. Can he discover where his own nature ends and his upbringing begins?

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