Jackson Free Press

"Pelican Road" by Howard Bahr (MacAdam Cage, 2008, $25) is the story of a railroad man and his cohorts who work the rail lines between Meridian, Miss., and New Orleans. Set in the early 1940s, steam locomotives still run, a college-educated World War I is within reach of recent memory, Jim Crow laws segregate southern society, and the effects of the Great Depression linger.

The story follows Artemus Kane, 45, a World War I veteran who rides a motorcycle. Kane's deceased father left him a house in Meridian and some money, so Kane is wealthy enough and smart enough to choose a less demanding occupation; however, he chooses to be a brakeman on the railroad, which his family and co-workers find hard to understand.

Kane is drawn to a life of motion because it requires his attention, and with his war experience, he needs that. The safety of the train, its passengers and cargo depend on Kane and the entire crew working together with skill and judgment. It is a dangerous job if you don't pay attention.

As the story opens, it is December—the weather is cold, the light is thin, and Kane can't stop thinking about his lover, Anna Rose, a writer whose apartment he shares when he is in New Orleans. The day before Christmas he must leave her again for another run.

The action mostly takes place along the old Pelican Road, an Indian trail-turned trade route-turned railroad track. From Meridian, through the rustic piney woods of Mississippi, over the bridges at Pearl River and Lake Pontchartrain, to the streets of New Orleans, Bahr recreates the landscape in the eyes and thoughts of the characters, while describing in detail the mechanics of making a train run.

"Though the sun was hidden, the Silver Star made a faint shadow in its passage over the land. Artemus Kane stood in the vestibule and watched the shadow of his coach racing along beside. It leapt over fencerows and grade crossings, flickered over the trunks of trees. The shadow kept the shape of the car, but it was distorted, too, as the features of the land pulled at it," Bahr writes.

The other characters in the book are mostly railroad men, including Kane's best friend and fellow veteran, Frank Smith. Memories of war creep into Bahr's narrative often. During the stretches between stations, or perhaps, triggered by a passenger he meets, Kane reminisces about events from the war, such as when Smith sends his platoon into a bombed-out French town. When they come under sniper fire, several soldiers fall, but Kane's brother stands up and walks upright through the mud, defying death.

There is much beauty but little cheerfulness in the descriptions of the physical world in Pelican Road. The narrative feels as if it is describing not only the end of the season, but also the end of an era. Most of the book has an elegiac feeling. Describing the cry of a steam engine and the effect it has on a person who really listens to it, Bahr writes: "Then the sound plumbed deep inside him to the place where every unborn dream still lived, where the oldest memory of all understood that life was passing, and no hand could stay it. The sound echoed off the dark fronts of buildings, or drifted over the fields and wood, and in that moment it became the soul's own voice, crying all that was ever lost or dreamed of."

The mournful tone of the book may overwhelm some readers, but the story is exceptionally well told. The author's familiarity with Mississippi, and his experience with railroads light up the prose, which is textured with the sensory aspects of work on the train. In addition to the signals, messages and conversations between the crew, the author adds the thoughts and memories of Kane and the men as they work. These back stories and insights are full of the rich associations afforded by the machinations of travel the mutable nature of the self through time, memory and place. The ending is not unexpected, but how and why each character plays a part in it is cunning and dramatic.

Purchase signed copies of "Pelican Road" at Lemuria (202 Banner Hall, 4465 I-55 N.). Call 601-366-7619 for more information.