Review: CLass by Vid Lazer Hardt

A quirky commentary on small-town life and the epic dramas that play out on Main Street, CLass by Vid Lazer Hardt is a whip-smart novel like few others. Loosely set in Acton, Vermont, where the biggest news in years is that a big film production is coming to town, this patient community drama is unassuming, but deeply entertaining.

Hollywood hotshot Loudon Golden is in town to film “Hobohemia,” and is using regular townspeople to fill in the extra gaps, giving the production a meta sense of realism. Fiona is a young woman just trying to survive, and manage a growing addiction to pharmaceuticals, which means occasionally stealing from the register at her jobs, or even trading sex for a bag of pills. Skip is the entrepreneurial furniture maker with an overbearing wife, a penchant for younger women, and a flourishing drug business. Stacy is a massage parlor worker who knows all the town’s dirty secrets, and exactly how to get what she wants. Rob has been down on his luck, but looking to work hard, make a change and get his life back on track.

This colorful East Coast community makes for a convincing cast of the film, which is something of a caricature of small-town life, where a homeless man is slowly embraced by a town once they realize his inherent value as a human. Loudon Golden’s inebriated, oversexed Scandinavian wife is not only his partner in life, but also in art, bringing an unpredictable sass to every scene. Personalities, lifestyles, and belief systems collide on set and within the swirling frenzy kicked up around town, leading to plenty of character-driven drama.

Aside from the fascinating players in this theatrical novel, there are also strong thematic explorations of poverty, industry, community resolve, and capitalism: “It was like living day to day, same as now. People were angry: this town had mattered, when the railroad stopped here. Then it was like the weather and the economy ganged up, everywhere. We heard about the Dust Bowl, out West, and we’d had the flood in ’27. It wiped out the railroad, then all the money vanished…”

This type of colloquial speech is scattered across the dialogue and narration, but the most impressive part of the prose is the passive-aggressive snark and subtle jokes laced in seemingly every other line. Hardt has impeccable wit, whether he is poking fun at the excessively large local constabulary, or savagely attacking broken societal systems through a fiery young proxy. CLass might not be a long read, but it is dense with well-crafted language. The plot is mostly driven by dialogue, which comes off as believable and organic, but the descriptions of subtly shocking events also keep readers glued to the page.

Exploring the quiet desperation of small-town existence, and delving into economic and substance abuse crises that feel particularly timely, this slice-of-life story hits hard. The casual inclusion of sex, drugs, manipulation, deception, and desperation is powerfully juxtaposed with the story’s small-town charm, and perhaps that is the book’s purpose – to look beyond old stereotypes and assumptions to see the struggles that unite, rather than divide us.