Reactionary RadicalsrnRADICAL REACTIONARIESrnThe Militia of LovernA Visit With Novelist Carolyn Chuternby Bill KaufifrnanrnCarolyn Chute’s return address includes the postscript,rn”No Fax/No Phone/No Paved Road.” The self-taughtrnnovelist of Maine’s backwoods can add “No More Good Reviews,”rnfor with her latest book. Snow Man, she has committedrnan unpardonable act of literary patriotism: She depicts a militiamanrnas a human being.rnWe came to Chute’s Parsonsfield from Concord, Massachusetts,rnwhere our daughter plunked imaginary redcoats on thernrude bridge that arched the flood. (Two hundred years ago.rnNew England had use of militiamen.) We were borne, not onrnthe night wind of the past, but on the ribboned highways of thernpresent. The McDonald’s we passed in Westbrook was sellingrna Lobster Value Meal—who says there’s no place for regionalrncuisine imder global capitalism? — but not for nothing hasrnMaine been relegated to the far corner of the country: Vandalsrnkeep throwing rocks through the window of the Starbucks inrnPortland. Some people just have no respect for private proper-rn*y-rnThe German and Swedish cars that hum along the Mainerncoast give way, the further inland one goes, to pickups, until ourrngreen Lumina starts to look suspiciously hoity-toity. Carolyn’srnhand-drawn map, with such landmarks as “Big old place” andrn”old trees,” is a cartographic masterpiece, as for once we makernno wrong turns.rnWe find her dirt road near the Maine-New Hampshire border.rnShe has posted a speed limit of 3.5 miles per hour on thernrutted path that leads to the wooden frame home, set amid 17rnhilly wooded acres, that the 1985 best-seller The Beans of EgyptrnMaine, bought for Carolyn and her husband, Michael.rnMichael greets us at the door, standing at attention, cradlingrna reproducfion Brown Bess. He is artillery commander of thernBorder Mountain Militia; our daughter thrills to the sight of thisrnRevolutionary War ghost.rnMichael has a ZZ Top-quality beard and a soft Maine drawl.rnHe mows and tends the town’s gravesites, filled with the bonesrnof his ancestors and relatives. His people have been here sincern1830; “this town is all related to him,” says Carolyn. Michael isrneight years younger than Carolyn, but she calls him “Pa.” Shernfirst saw him at a turkey shoot in Sebago. He cannot read, so shernreads her work aloud to him. This is natural: “Home is work inrncommon,” Carolyn says. “Home is life in common.”rnThere is a dreary sub-genre of regional writing by professorettesrnwho move to college towns and see the hirsute and sag-rnBill Kauffman is the author, most recently, of With GoodrnIntentions? Reflections on the Myth of Progress in Americarn(Praeger).rngy locals lolloping along Main Street and crank out novels inrnwhich they imagine the squalid lives of loutish husbands andrnvictimized wives and feral children, one of whom may scorernwell on the SATs and escape Boggy Creek for the facultyrnlounge. Carolyn Chute is not one of those. She is the realrnthing: a Maine girl who married a Maine boy and would nornmore betray Maine than she would turn over her guns to thernProper Authorities.rnCarolyn is an inveterate scrawler and sign-maker: Tables andrnwalls and the refrigerator are blazoned with such messages asrn”School Stinks” and “Neo-Isolafionist and Proud of It.” Drapedrnover the Stars and Stripes is the Border Mountain Militia flag,rndesigned by Carolyn and bearing the image of the AbominablernHairy Patriot. (“The Indians believed that in terrible times, arnbig hairy guy would come and warn the people.”) She rocksrnsteadily, laughs readily; we sit in the chairs usually occupied byrnher four Scottish terriers.rnThe flag of the Border Mountain Militia.rnNOVEMBER 1999/21rnrnrn