Published: Oct. 12, 2011
Words: 99469 (approximate)
Language: English

Short description

A story of love, success, disaster, sexual misbehavior, alcoholism, divorce, resurrection... all from one character's eyes and mind set. Some of the chapters were published as prize winning short stories, and led to filling out the entire novel. Reviews by former readers are published after the Prologue.

Extended description

The Hayfield

Prologue

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a slight motion, and think that I have moved her. But when I look back I watch, amazed, as her eyelid slides closed and then open again. Maybe, just maybe. I rub faster, moving the quilt over her entire body, drying her hide, causing the rough hair to stick up in whorls and spikes. Her eye begins to move in its socket. Outsized in the tiny head, it wanders as if trying to find some point of focus. The lashes flutter closed and then open again. I rub. “Come on, honey, come on.”... (Read more) The Hayfield

Prologue

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a slight motion, and think that I have moved her. But when I look back I watch, amazed, as her eyelid slides closed and then open again. Maybe, just maybe. I rub faster, moving the quilt over her entire body, drying her hide, causing the rough hair to stick up in whorls and spikes. Her eye begins to move in its socket. Outsized in the tiny head, it wanders as if trying to find some point of focus. The lashes flutter closed and then open again. I rub. “Come on, honey, come on.”
Billy is back with the cow, scratching her ear and talking to her again, though I can’t make out the words. He is watching me, us, and his hand works faster at the cow’s ear, as if to keep pace with my rubbing.
The calf’s head jerks up off the ground, startling me, but goes immediately back down. I lean down and put my head to her chest once again. The heartbeat is stronger, regular now, and I can hear the intake of breath beneath her ribs. “I think she’s going to make it, Billy,” I say, hearing the excitement in my voice. “If I can get her on her feet, I think she’ll make it.” Her head has come off the ground again, and she holds it up, trying to look around. Her eye focuses on me, and I feel her ribs rise as she takes a deep breath. She stretches her neck forward, and tries to bawl, but ends up making a coughing noise instead. Like someone trying to talk under water. Her lungs must have trapped some fluid from inside the sac, and I lift her up bodily and tilt her head down at the ground. Clear, pinkish liquid appears on her brown nose, and drops noiselessly onto the quilt. She begins to struggle in my arms, and I set her carefully onto her spindly legs. They promptly collapse, and she falls sideways.
As she struggles back up, Billy says, “Dad?”
When I look back at him, he is still scratching at the ear. But his free hand is pointing out in the direction his mother went, at small, dark shapes moving steadily up the road toward us. Growing as they come, the shapes gradually transform themselves into dogs. Fanned out across the road, they move at a stiff trot. In the lead are five large animals, jaws open, tongues lolling. Behind are five or six more, shifting in and out of view as they move. All of them run silently behind their shadows, nosing the blood scent.

Early Reviews of The Hayfield

The Hayfield is a compactly written novel with believable characters and an unusual setting. The novel takes place in California, the state in which I reside, however I was so baffled that I went to a map and felt compelled to locate the routes driven by the main character.
This is a personal history with overtones of survival, addiction and divorce. The characters evoke emotional ties to the reader when the issues get "too close to home".
~Barbara Blum

Set in rural Northern California, this sweeping emotional novel resonates with the struggles of a young couple’s hopes, expectations, and eventual shattered dreams. Good read!
~G. Gilbert, President Midwestern Distribution Company

I finished The Hayfield last night - read longer than I meant to, but got caught up in the drama of it all and "couldn't put it down"!
I really did like it, especially the second half, which is often the case since it takes time to develop the characters and make the reader care about them. And I found nothing unacceptable in it. In fact, I liked the fact that it was free from a plethora of objectionable language.
By the way, I loved the Epilogue, as it was life-affirming and ended on an upbeat of hope for Frank's future. I am rooting for him all the way!
This book would make for a great discussion for a book club! Not only is it well-written with vivid descriptive passages, but the characters are well-developed and there are some surprises along the way.

~Marilyn Crosby
(Less)

Adult-content rating:

This book contains content considered unsuitable for young readers 17 and under, and which may be offensive to some readers of all ages. For more information, see the Support FAQ.

Tags

love, travel, marriage, sex, recovery

Available ebook reading formats

Single purchase gains access to all formats. How to download ebooks to e-reading devices and apps.

Format	Full Book	Sample First 20%
Online Reading (HTML, good for sampling in web browser)	Buy	View sample
Online Reading (JavaScript, experimental, buggy)	Buy	View sample
Kindle (.mobi for Kindle devices and Kindle apps)	Buy	Download sample
Epub (Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others)	Buy	Download sample
PDF (good for reading on PC, or for home printing)	Buy	No sample available
RTF (readable on most word processors)	Buy	No sample available
LRF (Use only for older model Sony Readers that don't support .epub)	Buy	Download sample
Palm Doc (PDB) (for Palm reading devices)	Buy	Download sample
Plain Text (download) (flexible, but lacks much formatting)	Buy	No sample available
Plain Text (view) (viewable as web page)	Buy	No sample available

Reviews

Log-in to write a Review   Log-in to add a Video Review

Review by: Kendra Blewitt on May 02, 2012 :
I mostly read philosophy. I read Kant's metaphysics especially, which I consider to be the absolute height of things, but I also read serious fiction. I read Hemingway again this year, for example. I read "A Farewell to Arms." I am acquainted with Max, the author of the book in question, through tennis. I am a tournament player and Max was a USTA referee at a lot of the tournaments I played in. Anyhow I learned of Max's novel through the tennis scene and I read it, and, I must say, I am amazed by the quality of the literature. It compares favorably with the good stuff, i.e., classical literature, with which to some measure I am acquainted. This book is solid material, in my opinion; it does what for me novels are supposed to do, which is to provide an insightful picture of an historically significant people. In this case the people involved are the middle class of Americans that primarily made up the country until a few years ago. This book provides a good accurate picture of this historical people in terms of the motivations of their actions, or the workings of the soul. Personally speaking, I have found the time spent reading this book to be very rewarding.
(reviewed within a week of purchase)

Review by: Doug Gordon on April 12, 2012 : (no rating)
The Hayfield reads often as a streaming monologue from the mind of the Main Character. Focused intently on creating an ideal life for his family, he is often blind to the reality of the hear and now, and he pays dearly for it.

Set in North Central California, the author does a great job of putting the reader into the setting. For anyone that has ever experienced Oroville, CA during the summer, hot and flat are usually what come to mind. Fortunately, the author is able to completely transport the reader their with an increadibly detailed description of not just how it looks, but what it feels like to be there.

The Hayfield can catch you off guard, as Frank sometimes stumbles into situations and makes decisions that are completely unexpected, but luckily is able to redeem himself.

I look forward to reading more of his work soon.
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: Paul Dueweke on Jan. 16, 2012 :
"The Hayfield" is a well-crafted and compelling first novel by Max Gordon. Gordon’s mastery of the first person, present tense makes the story flow easily, as if you were sitting across the kitchen table from him, sharing a beer or a Bushmills, and listening to the story unfold. Story telling in the present tense is tricky, but Gordon does it naturally.

One of his strong points is his very credible dialogs that take the reader into the characters and their lives. Another forte is his ability to elicit a sense of the land and things that grow.

Reading "The Hayfield," we experience through Frank’s eyes the slow evolution of his family from the apparent shared joy of striking out into a new and very different life style to the brink of its destruction. Frank works hard as a hay broker to keep his struggling family afloat, but he also does a few stupid things along the way. A strong family can survive limited stupidity. But we learn that this is not a strong family. It has a weak link that we don’t fully appreciate until late in the tale.

Like all good novels, "The Hayfield" is about people and change. But change is not always for the better.
(reviewed the day of purchase)

Review by: Lawrence Reeve on Jan. 10, 2012 :
Every generation, it seems, has its back to the land movement wherein young couples eschew the bustle of the city for a simpler, rural self-sufficiency. This was particularly true in California in the sixties, I think, and this is the setting for Max Gordon’s debut novel, The Hayfield. Frank and Barbara, their son Billy, and one more on the way let go of their busy life in San Jose and buy a house with land enough to grow hay in Northern California. Although Frank left a steady job as a truck mechanic, he is no neophyte to the ways of the country. In fact, he takes to the tasks confronting him in setting up his new home readily, seeming born to it. That doesn’t prevent things from going horribly wrong, however, and they do so immediately.

While running through the new house on move-in day, Billy knocks his mother down, which turns out to be the precipitant in the deterioration of the marriage. The details of living a rural life are described artfully, and shows Frank’s command of his environment. Contrast that with his complete lack of understanding about what is going on with those he loves, and you have the basis for a fine relationship story.

The novel is focused through the lens of the environment, revealing Frank and Barbara’s relationship as they attempt to meet the demands their chosen life places on them. The mundane, but graphic details of things like dressing a rabbit, and building a fence are much more than they appear. A particularly fine passage about their confrontation with a pack of wild dogs strips away the last of the pretenses about who they are, and further erodes the marriage.
Frank becomes a hay broker to make ends meet, and his time on the road and association with the rural denizens, and the details of their daily lives, give life and breath to the story. It is a fine read.
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: Laura Ice on Dec. 07, 2011 :
The Hayfield is a compelling story... once I started reading it I had a hard time putting it down. The characters, for the most part, were well fleshed out. Most of the time they were sympathetic. The story starts with promise of a "nice", happy family, however trouble soon comes into their lives. I found myself rooting for them, hoping they could resolve their problems but somehow they just seemed to get worse. The final resolution was believable, and I was left feeling that things for Frank, the main character, would get better... Well written and worth the time to read. I will look forward to reading more stories from Max.
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: Tony Morris on Nov. 05, 2011 :
Max Gordons short stories have always held my attention, The Hayfield keeps me there. Varying aspects of the characters lets me think about how they will react to different situations. Sometimes I guess wrong, most of the time they ring true to their core. I see a little bit of James Lee Burke, a wee bit of Jack London and a touch of Steinbeck in his character development and details of the surroundings and action. I found that things skipped around a little bit to much at times but I intend to reread this book again and look for more books from Gordon.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Reason for report:
— Select a reason — Book is or contains spam Book infringes copyright Same content is published elsewhere with different author (for ex., by private-label rights) Duplicate Incomplete work (such as sample or serial) Should be marked adults-only Category is inappropriate Poorly formatted Nudity or other inappropriate content on cover Nudity or other inappropriate visual content in book Inappropriate erotica content Cover image is improper Content is inappropriate Other violation of Terms of Service Other reason not shown above.

Additional details: