Howard Frank Mosher remembered as 'voice of Vermont'
No author has ever captured the rural Vermont experience quite like Howard Frank Mosher. His writing, however, was about more than just the state he lived in and loved.
"I don't merely view him as a voice for Vermont," fellow Vermont author Chris Bohjalian said Sunday afternoon. "I view him as a beautiful stylist who found the universalities of the human condition in the idiosyncrasies of Vermont."
A week after announcing he had cancer and was in hospice care, Mosher died Sunday morning at his home in Irasburg. He was 74.
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Mosher was known for his novels about life in rural Vermont, including “Where the Rivers Flow North,” “Disappearances” and “A Stranger in the Kingdom.” Northeast Kingdom filmmaker Jay Craven turned several of Mosher’s novels into movies, including the 2013 film “Northern Borders” starring Bruce Dern and Genevieve Bujold.
On Friday the Irasburg resident was awarded what Burlington City Arts calls the largest arts prize in the state, the $10,000 Herb Lockwood Prize. The honor was awarded several months early because of Mosher's diagnosis.
Early Sunday afternoon, Mosher's wife, Phillis, announced the author's death on his Facebook page.
"The light and love of my life, my precious Howard, is now at peace. I will keep you all posted, though, about 'Points North' as I promised I would," she wrote in part, referring to Mosher's latest novel that is due out at the end of this year.
Mosher was more than a writer who won a Guggenheim Fellowship and was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts. He was a vivid, witty storyteller on the printed page but also in person, a man who could engagingly weave an extemporaneous yarn seemingly out of the molecules in the air. He was also an indefatigable supporter of burgeoning Vermont writers and small Vermont publishing companies.
Bohjalian, the Lincoln author known for novels such as "Midwives," "The Guest Room"and his new book, "The Sleepwalker," referred to Mosher as his "literary godfather" with a streak of selflessness.
"Howard was one of the most generous novelists I know," said Bohjalian, who dedicated "Water Witches," his fourth novel, to Mosher. "There are so many of us whose books Howard read when we were young and for whom he went out on limb."
Todd R. Lockwood created the now-4-year-old Herb Lockwood Prize to honor his late brother, and said Mosher fit perfectly the idea of the award to honor those who achieve great art and encourage others to do the same. Herb Lockwood was a noted Burlington musician.
Todd Lockwood, a photographer and writer who lives in Burlington, remembers sheepishly handing his self-published novel to Mosher at a reading in 2011.
"He said, 'Oh, I'd love to read that," Lockwood recalled Sunday. "Lo and behold, about three weeks later I get a note from him in the mail saying how much he enjoyed the book and mentioned a few details about it and encouraged me to keep doing it. That was pretty amazing for someone of his stature to do that."
Bohjalian recalls an unexpected dose of Mosher's kindness from 22 years ago, following the birth of Bohjalian's daughter, Grace.
"He gave her the full collection of Laura Ingalls Wilder books, 'Little House on the Prairie,'" Bohjalian said. "Obviously Grace and I were not going to read them together for years, but it was the most perfect, appropriate gift from one novelist to another, especially since we both had daughters."
Bohjalian said Mosher's legacy is "a vast library of stories about the Northeast Kingdom as a microcosm for the world at large.
"Vermont has a lost a great voice and someone who understood what old Vermont was like," Bohjalian said. "He was a great chronicler of a Vermont that is slipping fast into history."
Lockwood said Mosher is the quintessential Vermont writer. "He created a mirror for Vermont to see itself in," according to Lockwood. Every one of his 11 novels was about Vermont, and he really captures the culture so beautifully, warts and all."
Lockwood went to Mosher's house in Irasburg on Friday to present him with the Herb Lockwood Prize. Mosher, speaking softly following his lung-cancer diagnosis,accepted the honor from Todd Lockwood with classic Vermont imagery.
"When I handed him the glass award," Lockwood said, "he hefted it in his hand and whispered that it was the weight of a really fine rainbow trout."
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck .
Vermont author Mosher diagnosed with cancer, in hospice
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