Rattlesnake Ridge

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Summary: Simmons' great American novel
Review: Philip Simmons' first novel "Rattlesnake Ridge" is a masterpiece. Set in the foothills of the New Hampshire White Mountains, it is a both an observation and commentary on morality and nature, love and its illusions, spirituality and its perversions. It is a novel of coming back to the land, a love of all things natural, about which Simmons is most knowledgeable and the conflicts to success in a world of change.

Simmons' use of language is a wonder. Poetic and wry, he portrays his characters and their habitat in luminous words that are tender to the lips. There is sex and adventure, murder even, and financial intrigue. But what sets this work apart is the sheer brilliance of the writing. He is at once a Hardy, Faulkner and Russel Banks at their best. Another author with whom he shared his gifts is Lewis Grassic Gibbon, the great Scottish writer who, like Simmons, died untimely to leave us all wondering what further literary delights might have been realized had fate chosen to treat us all more kindly.