Set in remote Vermont, Howard Frank Mosher’s 2014 novel Northern Borders is a poignant, humorous coming-of-age novel. In 1948, six-year-old Austen Kittredge is sent to live on his grandparents’ hardscrabble hill farm in the wilderness of Lost Nation Hollow. There, he undergoes a remarkable education, spending his next twelve formative years coming of age.
Austen’s new home is far from ordinary. His grandparents, Austen Sr. and Abiah, are fiercely independent, larger-than-life figures locked in a legendary, four-decade-long domestic conflict often referred to by the locals as the “Forty Years’ War”. Austen Sr., a self-proclaimed difficult man who works as a timber logger, claims to be the meanest man in Kingdom County. Despite his rough edges, he possesses a deep respect for the surrounding wilderness and for Austen. Abiah, his equally willful and educated wife, harbors a passionate obsession with Egyptology, filling a dedicated room in the farmhouse with books and artifacts, and dreaming of her grandson becoming an archaeologist.
As Austen grows into a young man, he becomes deeply entangled in the eccentric lives of his grandparents, alternating his loyalties and serving as a confidant to both. He acts as a bridge between their secret, isolated worlds: accompanying his grandfather on a harrowing, treacherous canoe expedition to Labrador to honor a profound past love, and spending time in his grandmother’s “Egypt” room, learning about history and the wider world.
Through a series of wild, episodic adventures, Austen matures from a hesitant boy into a capable young man. His life is punctuated by the vivid pageantry of his rural community, including chaotic one-room schoolhouse squabbles, regional county fairs, and annual family gatherings. Along the way, he navigates the complex, festering secrets of the Kittredge family lineage. Most importantly, he uncovers the surprising reasons behind his grandparents’ lifelong marital friction.
Ultimately, Northern Borders transcends a simple rural narrative to offer a deeply moving, nostalgic, and nostalgic tribute to a bygone era in New England. Mosher captures the vanishing, rugged lifestyle of the last Vermont frontier, celebrating the enduring values of independence and resilience. Through Austen’s observant eyes, the author paints an unforgettable, affectionate portrait of a fiercely independent people shaped directly by the wild, unforgiving, and beautiful landscape of the northern border country.