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South of the Northeast Kingdom
Compared to some of its New England neighbors, Vermont has seemed to long-time resident David Mamet a place of intrinsic energy and progressiveness, love and commonality. It has lived up to the old story that settlers came up the Connecticut River and turned right to get to New Hampshire and left to get to Vermont. Is Vermont's tradition of live and let live an accident of geography, the happy by-product of 200 years of national neglect, an emanation of its Scots-Irish regional character? Exploring the ways in which his decades in Vermont have shaped his character and his work, Mamet examines each of these strands and how the state's free-thinking tradition can survive in an age of increasing conglomeration. The result is a highly personal and compelling portrait of a truly unique place.
- GenresNonfictionTravelMemoir
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
About the author
David Mamet
260 books748 followersDavid Alan Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for his exploration of masculinity.
As a playwright, he received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997).
Mamet's recent books include The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary, with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, an acerbic commentary on the movie business.
As a playwright, he received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997).
Mamet's recent books include The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (2004), a Torah commentary, with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; and Bambi vs. Godzilla, an acerbic commentary on the movie business.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
September 26, 2011
Essays about woodstoves and deer hunting are not exactly what I was expecting from the man who brought us Glengarry Glen Ross and the screenplay for "The Untouchables", but it shows his versatility, I guess. Though mostly a celebration of rural life in Vermont, there is occasional politcal commentary.
Reading this was kind of like listening to the old men who gather for coffee at the Dunkin Donuts. Listen long enough and you'll pick up a few nuggets of wisdom.
Reading this was kind of like listening to the old men who gather for coffee at the Dunkin Donuts. Listen long enough and you'll pick up a few nuggets of wisdom.
February 18, 2014
David Mamet is the author of the screenplay 'Wag the Dog,' a brilliant and humorous movie about the dishonesty of modern government and the naivete of the American public. The title says it all.
But here he is in a completely different genre. The book is part of a series of volumes commissioned and published by National Geographic about distinctive regions in the US. Mamet takes pen to paper and waxes eloquent about the peculiarities of the people, the history, and the geography of Vermont. I could not put this book down. The pages are filled with humorous social practices, descriptions of native Vermont architecture, and commentary on lessons learned through decades of living in this amazing state.
As a warning, the book does contain some content that may be mildly offensive to younger or more sensitive readers. But Mamet also draws on his religious background to offer nuggets of wisdom from the Jewish tradition concerning childrearing, property management, etc. Humor comes easy to Mamet, and he sprinkles the pages of this book with a mixture of profound meditations and light-hearted stories. The book did not make me want to go to Vermont, but it made me feel like I had been there. For those of us with tight budgets and limited time, perhaps no higher compliment could be paid to a work in this series.
But here he is in a completely different genre. The book is part of a series of volumes commissioned and published by National Geographic about distinctive regions in the US. Mamet takes pen to paper and waxes eloquent about the peculiarities of the people, the history, and the geography of Vermont. I could not put this book down. The pages are filled with humorous social practices, descriptions of native Vermont architecture, and commentary on lessons learned through decades of living in this amazing state.
As a warning, the book does contain some content that may be mildly offensive to younger or more sensitive readers. But Mamet also draws on his religious background to offer nuggets of wisdom from the Jewish tradition concerning childrearing, property management, etc. Humor comes easy to Mamet, and he sprinkles the pages of this book with a mixture of profound meditations and light-hearted stories. The book did not make me want to go to Vermont, but it made me feel like I had been there. For those of us with tight budgets and limited time, perhaps no higher compliment could be paid to a work in this series.
July 5, 2022
Vermont is my favorite state. I first visited it while in seminary, and that for a night-time concert out in the country somewhere. Since then a friend from high school settled there, first in the Northeast Kingdom, in a house he built himself, then, having obtained a job at Dartmouth, down in Springfield, official home of the Simpson family. For years he would make annual trips, often with his son, to my cottage in Michigan. Then, upon my loss of that property, he began inviting me to Springfield. Trained as an historian of colonial and revolutionary North America, such visits have always included an educational dimension: travels around the state, recommended books, impromptu lectures.
Mamet is probably the theatrical director most prominent in my mind. Even though I've only seen one of his plays on stage, I've seen many of them as adapted to the cinema. I'd known he was a Chicagoan. I hadn't known that he'd been living in rural Vermont for over forty years, appreciating the state and its people much as I do.
This is a short book consisting of stories, recollections, anecdotes, all quite subjective, readable in a single sitting. Mamet writes well, is often amusing. I give it four stars out of shared sentiments.
Mamet is probably the theatrical director most prominent in my mind. Even though I've only seen one of his plays on stage, I've seen many of them as adapted to the cinema. I'd known he was a Chicagoan. I hadn't known that he'd been living in rural Vermont for over forty years, appreciating the state and its people much as I do.
This is a short book consisting of stories, recollections, anecdotes, all quite subjective, readable in a single sitting. Mamet writes well, is often amusing. I give it four stars out of shared sentiments.
July 23, 2008
I thought I would like this much more than I did. National Geographic commissioned well-respected authors to choose a certain geographic part of the United States and write about it in a non-fiction format. Mamet chose Northern Vermont. He went to Goddard College and has lived in Vermont for over 40 years as his primary residence. His four children were born there.
He writes this in a series of vignettes usually framed at the beginning of each chapter by an artifact. ( a woodstove, a table, a rifle) and then weaves together a recollection
and observation of place, time, character etc. that is authentic, often amusing and engaging but in some chapters seems forced and incomplete. He is provocative at times and likes to use words one needs a dictionary to interpret, but he is true to himself. This is obviously his work. There are some black and white photographs that belong to him which he includes. They have a spareness to them which certainly symbolizes the simplicity of Vermont. Somehow, I just thought this book would be better.
He writes this in a series of vignettes usually framed at the beginning of each chapter by an artifact. ( a woodstove, a table, a rifle) and then weaves together a recollection
and observation of place, time, character etc. that is authentic, often amusing and engaging but in some chapters seems forced and incomplete. He is provocative at times and likes to use words one needs a dictionary to interpret, but he is true to himself. This is obviously his work. There are some black and white photographs that belong to him which he includes. They have a spareness to them which certainly symbolizes the simplicity of Vermont. Somehow, I just thought this book would be better.
July 17, 2022
A thoughtful tribute, in essay form, to Vermont and its people.
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July 29, 2011I loved this book--it is part of a National Geographic series that I suspect was not all that successful because I have never heard of it and it has about a dozen books, at least a handful of which are by authors I have heard of about places they know and perhaps love. THat is certainly the case about David Mamet, who transplanted himself from NYC to rural Vermont, and has lived there as a non-native for 30 years--this is about his observations of the place and the people around him. He describes a number of things that I have seen, and he is dead on, and kind of matter-of-fact funny about it as well. I would highly recommend this for someone who wants a well written description of classic Vermonters in situ.
February 11, 2013
My copy of "South of the Northeast Kingdom" has a big yellow sticker on it that says "bargain." And well it should. There isn't much here. A very short and random collection of essays about Mamet's neighborhood and neighbors in Vermont. Mamet has written several plays and screenplays which I loved. But this book in neither well written nor at all interesting. Suspect this would never have been published were it not for the author's noteriety in other areas.
February 16, 2016
David Mamet 19s various musings collected under the title 1CSouth of the Northeast Kingdom 1D is mostly about Vermont except when it is about everywhere else, perhaps meant to contrast the rest of the world with Vermont. The title is unexplained except to note that the northeastern part of Vermont is called the Northeast Kingdom, and that is just what it is called. Mamet (the final 1Ct 1D is pronounced), a native of Chicago, went to Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, in the 1960s, and has lived in Vermont on and off ever since, in spite of a career in theater, film and television that has taken him to New York and Los Angeles. One of Mamet 19s most obviously relevant references to the outside world seems to imply that the flight from Boston to Los Angeles that was one of the planes that flew into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was a flight that he often took himself. So when he speaks of the impact of that event on the national consciousness, there is a particularly personal twinge for Mamet himself. It is not his closest brush with death. Once, he got lost in the Vermont woods in the dead of winter. As the sun fell, he finally found himself less than a mile from his own house. If he had gone this way instead of that, he might have frozen to death.
Mamet feels like an outsider after many decades in Vermont, even though three of his four children have been born in the town nearest his northern Vermont home. Unlike most Vermonters, he is Jewish and conscious of how it adds to his status as an outsider, and yet he finds that native Vermonters have always treated him with respect and even kindness. He does, however, enjoy the friendships of fellow Jews who have moved to Vermont. Many of his essays include sketches of the people he has met and whom he calls friends in Vermont, and he has joined both locals and fellow transplants in their activities. He knows people who came to Vermont to write, practice traditional arts and crafts or start restaurants, but he is also intimately familiar with the places where the natives eat and catch up on the town gossip. He has befriended the old country doctor, retired policemen, several World War II veterans, country store owners and a pair of twins who repair cars.
One of the reasons that I got this book was that I am planning to read Mamet 19s newest book 1CThe Secret Knowledge 1D about his odyssey from liberalism to conservatism. 1CNortheast Kingdom 1D turns out to be a good place to start because it shows Mamet at a very early stage of his transformation. While being, at the time these essays were published in 2002, a liberal democrat who is suspicious of modern corporations and disdainful of republicans, Mamet is already more comfortable with his VFW friends at a Fourth of July parade than with the Bread and Puppet Theatre of Glover, Vermont, whose skits decry 1Csome specific or vague aspect of human nature that is currently causing them particular sorrow. 1D Mamet finds their indignation 1Csmug 1D (which more or less matches my impression of them when I saw them a couple of years ago).
Significantly, Mamet admires the New England town meetings he has witnessed. This direct democracy is a visceral reality that speaks to Mamet of self-reliance and individual responsibility as much as it does of intimate community. Elsewhere in the 1CEmpire, 1D as Mamet calls America at large, there is neither self-sufficiency nor responsibility nor communitarian intimacy. And the attempts to create a sense of community in America at large tend to be artificial because the genuine intimacy of a village may be gone in most places, only preserved in the little towns that Mamet has found and which most Americans no longer believe exist. But a problem for Mamet in his 2002 persistence in thinking of himself as a liberal democrat is that the Democratic party had by then already been infiltrated-and seems to be guided today-by people who do not believe in or want self-reliance or individual responsibility. The only kind of community they want to foster is the kind that they can control from Washington, DC, not the kind where there might be genuine intimacy between members of the community. They are opposed to everything that Mamet admires about his neighbors.
Another reason I read this book is because I have ancestors who lived in Vermont, and I wanted to shed light on their experience. I am not sure whether I learned very much I did not know. My ancestors lived in the southeastern part of the state very long ago, but they undoubtedly saw the genesis of the culture Mamet describes.
Best in Mamet 19s book are the anecdotes about people and things that he and others have experienced in Vermont; not incidentally, there seems to be a discernable lesson in each of these stories.
Once, when he was a young man living in Vermont 19s state capital, Montpelier, and just making ends meet, Mamet went to the state office building to see if there was a form or instruction booklet that would help him with a problem he was having filling out his state income tax. Poking his head into an open doorway, he asked a woman if there was such a form. She began asking him questions and wound up helping him do his taxes. She was the state income tax commissioner. Lesson: Vermont is such a small, intimate place that even the state officials are neighborly.
A traveling salesman who targeted women who were planning to get married sent an advertisement of his presentation to the Vermont college where Mamet was teaching. The school 19s lesbian community invited the salesman to come; only they presented him with a roomful of half-naked, body-painted young women in blatant public displays of affection. Mamet witnessed this unpromising start but, unable to bear the poor man 19s humiliation, wandered off for a while. Unable to stay away forever, though, he returned in time to see women lining up to buy pots and pans. Lesson: Vermont salesmen are determined-and just possibly unfazed by anything. Perhaps, also, there is the lesson that everybody needs pots and pans, and lesbians are no different.
Mamet feels like an outsider after many decades in Vermont, even though three of his four children have been born in the town nearest his northern Vermont home. Unlike most Vermonters, he is Jewish and conscious of how it adds to his status as an outsider, and yet he finds that native Vermonters have always treated him with respect and even kindness. He does, however, enjoy the friendships of fellow Jews who have moved to Vermont. Many of his essays include sketches of the people he has met and whom he calls friends in Vermont, and he has joined both locals and fellow transplants in their activities. He knows people who came to Vermont to write, practice traditional arts and crafts or start restaurants, but he is also intimately familiar with the places where the natives eat and catch up on the town gossip. He has befriended the old country doctor, retired policemen, several World War II veterans, country store owners and a pair of twins who repair cars.
One of the reasons that I got this book was that I am planning to read Mamet 19s newest book 1CThe Secret Knowledge 1D about his odyssey from liberalism to conservatism. 1CNortheast Kingdom 1D turns out to be a good place to start because it shows Mamet at a very early stage of his transformation. While being, at the time these essays were published in 2002, a liberal democrat who is suspicious of modern corporations and disdainful of republicans, Mamet is already more comfortable with his VFW friends at a Fourth of July parade than with the Bread and Puppet Theatre of Glover, Vermont, whose skits decry 1Csome specific or vague aspect of human nature that is currently causing them particular sorrow. 1D Mamet finds their indignation 1Csmug 1D (which more or less matches my impression of them when I saw them a couple of years ago).
Significantly, Mamet admires the New England town meetings he has witnessed. This direct democracy is a visceral reality that speaks to Mamet of self-reliance and individual responsibility as much as it does of intimate community. Elsewhere in the 1CEmpire, 1D as Mamet calls America at large, there is neither self-sufficiency nor responsibility nor communitarian intimacy. And the attempts to create a sense of community in America at large tend to be artificial because the genuine intimacy of a village may be gone in most places, only preserved in the little towns that Mamet has found and which most Americans no longer believe exist. But a problem for Mamet in his 2002 persistence in thinking of himself as a liberal democrat is that the Democratic party had by then already been infiltrated-and seems to be guided today-by people who do not believe in or want self-reliance or individual responsibility. The only kind of community they want to foster is the kind that they can control from Washington, DC, not the kind where there might be genuine intimacy between members of the community. They are opposed to everything that Mamet admires about his neighbors.
Another reason I read this book is because I have ancestors who lived in Vermont, and I wanted to shed light on their experience. I am not sure whether I learned very much I did not know. My ancestors lived in the southeastern part of the state very long ago, but they undoubtedly saw the genesis of the culture Mamet describes.
Best in Mamet 19s book are the anecdotes about people and things that he and others have experienced in Vermont; not incidentally, there seems to be a discernable lesson in each of these stories.
Once, when he was a young man living in Vermont 19s state capital, Montpelier, and just making ends meet, Mamet went to the state office building to see if there was a form or instruction booklet that would help him with a problem he was having filling out his state income tax. Poking his head into an open doorway, he asked a woman if there was such a form. She began asking him questions and wound up helping him do his taxes. She was the state income tax commissioner. Lesson: Vermont is such a small, intimate place that even the state officials are neighborly.
A traveling salesman who targeted women who were planning to get married sent an advertisement of his presentation to the Vermont college where Mamet was teaching. The school 19s lesbian community invited the salesman to come; only they presented him with a roomful of half-naked, body-painted young women in blatant public displays of affection. Mamet witnessed this unpromising start but, unable to bear the poor man 19s humiliation, wandered off for a while. Unable to stay away forever, though, he returned in time to see women lining up to buy pots and pans. Lesson: Vermont salesmen are determined-and just possibly unfazed by anything. Perhaps, also, there is the lesson that everybody needs pots and pans, and lesbians are no different.
December 21, 2022
Pretentious mattress stuffing (with an excess of blank pages between short “chapters”) except when the author describes his neighbors which is all too seldom. The author did not follow his own observation, that "the Vermonters and the Scots practice economy of words. This is not a reluctance to communicate, but a desire to communicate only those things of which one is sure, and upon which one intends to act" (p. 72).
September 24, 2018
This is what a great writer writes about when he doesn't know what to write about.
Great descriptions of Vermont, fantastic imagery
average offerings of "wisdom"
Poor understanding of advertising.
He does not know about real advertising; only the idea of advertising.
I enjoyed the book until about page 100, then, my interest waned.
And yes, he plays the NY jew card.
Great descriptions of Vermont, fantastic imagery
average offerings of "wisdom"
Poor understanding of advertising.
He does not know about real advertising; only the idea of advertising.
I enjoyed the book until about page 100, then, my interest waned.
And yes, he plays the NY jew card.
July 11, 2020
As.a lover of Vermont and the Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT, where I bought this book 10 years ago, I was pulled into his memories of going up to Vermont in the late 40s and 50s and his house up there. A totally different and more remote place compared to present day. Really enjoyed his musings.
July 31, 2018
Nicely written and from long life experience. Nice portrait of Vermont.
July 27, 2021
Explains clearly why I continue to love Vermont, even after having left it 50 years ago.
April 5, 2022
A good book, with echos of rural Wisconsin in the stories about Vermont.
August 9, 2013
Couldn't put it down, although I kept having to. I wrote large chunks of the book into my own notebook. Loads of inspiration. This book, Mamet's love letter to northern Vermont, leaves you wanting for more, which I think is an aspect of any great book. Part memoir, part local lore, speckled with personal photos (one taken by friend William H. Macy was a welcome surprise) and stories galore. My favorite bits are about Mamet's own friends and neighbors who've raised kids together, braved Vermont winters together, brought dinners to each others' homes after the births of babies. The knitter friend who donated her beautiful wares to victims of September 11, hoping some would get through. The potter who taught Mamet and family to throw clay. The local bakery where newborns first come to be weighed, baptized into the tight-knit clan that, by memoir's end, we all want to become a part of. I loved it.
July 11, 2016
This book is by David Mamet, the playwright, who has lived in Vermont for decades and where he raised his family. It is a well-written book but amazingly the language often grates against the nature of the very place he is trying to describe. He lived in a rustic area near Cabot, Vermont. Mamet is honest about his status as outsider and tries to shine the light on the wonderful people he met that are native Vermonters. He makes frequent reference to the stoicism of Vermonters in word and deed. I was eager to read the book and would have given it four stars but for its failure to share in any meaningful way what it meant to Mamet to have lived there and its real impact on his life. He clearly has a love of Vermont but it seems rooted in an intellectual assessment more than heartfelt experience.
June 18, 2020
Some memorable anecdotes about this state where I live. Mamet namedrops on all his cronies and says nothing about the area of the state where I live, but he captures much of what life's like in these parts.
August 4, 2011
Perhaps the most unorganized book I ever read. Just a bunch of random paragraphs, often with no association with the paragraphs before and after it. I only bothered to get through it because it was so short.
May 15, 2014
I really enjoy the idea behind this series and while this book was a bit rambling and interspersed with a few too many personal conjectures, I still enjoyed the sense of place that it conveyed.
February 18, 2016
A pleasant well-paced read about an author's 40-year life in Vermont. A memoir format.
March 26, 2017
Un libro, quasi un saggio, che è prima di tutto un atto di gratitudine verso una terra a cui Mamet è profondamente legato. L'autore riesce a descrivere in modo profondo e acuto le peculiarità, il carattere del Vermont, partendo anche da piccole cose; come se Mamet, attraverso queste righe, volesse svelarci che è proprio in una quotidianità scandita da atti semplici, ma pregni, mai vacui, che può anche nascondersi il segreto della felicità.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews