The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford

The Mountain Lion, Jean Stafford’s gloriously unsettling coming-of-age novel, is the latest addition to the Faber Editions series – an imprint that seems to be going from strength to strength. It’s the fifth book I’ve read from this series, and they’ve all had something thrilling and original to offer. (Do check them out if you haven’t done so already; they really are very good indeed.)

If you like Carson McCullers, Barbara Comyns, Shirley Jackson or Elspeth Barker (who wrote the wildly evocative O Caledonia), then The Mountain Lion (first published in 1947) will almost certainly appeal. In fact, if Carson McCullers and Elspeth Barker had run off together to the Colorado mountains to work on a novel, this rediscovered gem might have been the result. It’s a haunting, unnerving portrayal of a close but volatile brother-sister relationship, laced with an undercurrent of menace as adolescence beckons on the horizon.

The siblings in question are Ralph and Molly Fawcett, who live in California with their prim widowed mother, Mrs Rose Fawcett, and two older sisters, Leah and Rachel. At the start of the novel, Ralph and Molly are aged ten and eight respectively, and Stafford follows their progress over five years, mostly during the summer holidays.

The novel opens with the siblings leaving school early one day following simultaneous nose bleeds – a frequent occurrence as the children are still experiencing the after-effects of a bout of scarlet fever. It’s an ominous beginning, suggesting perhaps some of the disruption to come. Moreover, the siblings are awkward and unrefined – qualities exacerbated by their recent illness and sickly dispositions.

Molly was not only ugly, she had a homemade look, the look of having been put together by an inexperienced hand. (p. 147)

At home, Ralph and Molly are rebellious and hot-tempered, but in the company of others, their shyness leaves them open to intimidation, isolating them from their peers. Born from a profound sense of alienation, the siblings share a contempt for many of those around them, not least their prissy, socially-conscious mother and refined older sisters. The insufferable Reverend Follansbee and his equally dull wife also come in for much criticism from Molly and Ralph, especially when the children are alone together.

Neither Ralph nor Molly had any idea what he [Reverend Follansbee] meant but they caught an undertone of ridicule in his voice, and fearing and hating him, they went up to Ralph’s room, where each of them printed “Rev. Follansbee” seven times on sheets of drawing paper and then burned the papers in the gilt Buddha incense burner. (p. 14)

Molly is a fascinating character, the sort of creature who could walk straight into a Barbara Comyns novel without anyone batting an eyelid. In a move reminiscent of Penelope from Pamela Frankau’s A Wreath for the Enemy, Molly keeps a list of ‘unforgivables’ in her diary – her own version of cancel culture, perhaps. Moreover, she has a tendency to say exactly what she thinks without considering how her pronouncements might be perceived – a habit that often leads to discomfort and embarrassment for others, not least her mother.

At first, Molly and Ralph are extremely close, drawing on their active imaginations to keep themselves amused, united in their disdain for order, refinement and conformity. Nevertheless, their grandfather’s death catalyses a series of changes that put a strain on the siblings’ relationship. It had been their late grandfather’s wish that Ralph and Molly should spend a summer on their Uncle Claude’s ranch in Colorado to toughen them up. While Mrs Fawcett is reluctant to let the children go, fearing some kind of accident or relapse, the family doctor persuades her to agree, ushering in a series of summer visits for Ralph and Molly.

Initially, the children are overawed by the vastness and evident perils of the mountainous Colorado landscape; nevertheless, they soon become acclimatised, Ralph in particular.

For the first weeks of this first visit to Uncle Claude, Ralph and Molly were not happy and most of the time they were afraid. The landscape itself was frightening. Above timberline the snow was thick in the deep gashes; to the north were two long glaciers which sometimes shone pink through the haze; this pinkness came from bacteria which inhabited the glacier snow, and when he learned this Ralph was curiously disgusted, he did not know why. (…) The mountains were at once remote – their summits were often enshrouded by clouds – and oppressively confining. The children had been used to summers at the seashore and the sea, even in a storm, was something that could be taken in at one glance; its evils, however, were quite hidden, so that sharks and sting-rays, hurricanes and calms seemed only legendary and needed not be reckoned in their impressions; (…) But the mountains wore peril conspicuously on their horny faces. (pp. 100–101)

As the summers slip by, the two siblings, once so united against the world, begin to grow apart. Ralph bonds with Uncle Claude, revelling in the rugged atmosphere of the ranch and all the outdoor activities such a life entails. Moreover, as his adolescence kicks in and his body begins to fill out, Ralph discovers the appeal of girls, lusting after Winifred, an attractive teenager who also lives on the ranch.

Meanwhile, Molly grows increasingly insular and cutting, focusing on her writing while isolating herself from those around her. In some respects, while Ralph is embracing the path to adulthood and all the complexities this transition triggers, Molly seems to be fighting against it – and increasingly against Ralph himself. As the tension between the siblings ratches up, Claude continues his hunt for the elusive mountain lion, rumoured to be roaming the landscape nearby…

Stafford has created such an evocative, relatable world here, instantly recognisable to anyone who recalls the pain and awkwardness of adolescence – from the disdain we have for our parents and elders to the discomfort we feel in our bodies as they develop to the confusion and resentments that frequently surface as we grow apart from our soulmates.

The writing is superb, perfectly capturing the balance between the claustrophobic feel of the children’s inner worlds and the vastness of the surrounding landscape, complete with its many inherent dangers – not least the mountain lion on the loose. Stafford does a fine job of drawing on the reader’s senses throughout, infusing her narrative with the aromas that define the siblings’ formative years, from the heady scent of flowers following their grandfather’s death to the intense smells in the ranch house, a mix of leather, saddle soap, dogs and drying cowhides. Sounds play an important role too, not least in the story’s enigmatic closing stages.

The novel is flecked with touches of dark humour (much of which comes from the children’s contempt for their elders) and macabre, idiosyncratic images that give the story a rich visual quality. (Once again, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Stafford’s work had influenced Barbara Comyns or Elspeth Barker. It’s an interesting point to consider…)

Mr Follansbee experimented with another gambit. His hobby was taxidermy and his house, which smelled of mud, was full of stuffed skunks, raccoons, woodpeckers, bluebirds, and cottontails, the corpses being brought to him by his obedient flock, some of whom felt that for a minister the pastime was unduly skittish. (p. 67)

In summary, then, The Mountain Lion is a haunting, beautifully written portrayal of the anguish of childhood and early adolescence – strange, sinister, yet utterly relatable. Stafford’s ability to immerse the reader in the horrors of a troubled youth, her focus on the unnerving aspects of a perilous sibling relationship and her vivid evocation of the landscape and the children’s inner worlds mark her out as a writer to rediscover. She also infuses the narrative with an ominous sense of mystery – something poisonous and unknowable – especially towards the end. I’ll finish with a short quote from the beginning of this excellent novel, which hints at the turmoil to come…  

There were times when Mrs. Fawcett feared for the reason of her two younger children: they had natures of such cold determination that she trembled to think what they might do if they were crossed in a matter very close to their hearts. (p. 15)