Ceremony in Lone Tree by Wright Morris

First published: 1960

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of plot: Mid-twentieth century

Locale: Nebraska

Principal characters

• Tom Scanlon, an elderly man
• Lois McKee, his oldest daughter
• Walter McKee, Lois’s husband
• Maxine Momeyer, another daughter
• Bud Momeyer, Maxine’s husband, a postal worker
• Lee Roy Momeyer, Bud’s nephew, a high school boy
• Edna Ewing, Tom’s youngest daughter
• “Colonel” Clyde Ewing, Edna’s husband, a wealthy Oklahoman
• Gordon McKee, Walter’s son
• Calvin McKee, Gordon’s son
• Etoile McKee, Calvin’s wife
• Gordon Boyd, Walter’s boyhood friend and hero
• W. B. Jennings, a journalist and adventure story writer
• “Daughter”, a hitchhiker whom Gordon Boyd picks up

The Story:

Tom Scanlon spends his life in the Lone Tree Hotel in Lone Tree, Nebraska, now a ghost town. The winter before he is ninety, his daughter Lois and her husband, Walter, take him on a trip to Mexico. There they run into Walter’s old friend Gordon Boyd, who left Nebraska because he could not have Lois. Later, Walter writes to Boyd and invites him to a reunion in Lone Tree late in March, on Tom’s ninetieth birthday.

After much soul-searching, Boyd leaves Acapulco in his dilapidated car and heads north. In a Nevada town, where tourists come to see nuclear bomb tests, Boyd offers a ride to a young, penniless girl. In Nebraska, after the car rolls into a ditch, Boyd and “Daughter” hop a passing freight train.

The members of Tom’s family share several worries. One is the increasing violence around them. In Lincoln, Charlie Munger shot ten people, and Bud Momeyer’s nephew, Lee Roy Momeyer, ran his car over two boys, killing them. Lois is concerned about her grandson Gordon McKee, who loves guns and likes to torment women. Even the friendly Bud has a sadistic streak; his hobby is shooting cats with a bow and arrow.

The women in the family also discuss the possibility of marriage between two cousins, the Momeyer girl, Etoile, and the older Gordon McKee’s son, Calvin. Etoile’s mother, Maxine, sees this as a chance for her daughter to catch a husband with money, but Etoile is primarily interested in sex. Calvin just wants to be free, like a cowboy. Calvin is busy planning a birthday surprise for Tom. Etoile will dress up like Tom’s late wife Samantha, and the two of them will ride into Lone Tree in a mule-drawn buggy, just as in the old days.

Unable to get into high school at home, Lee Roy went to Lincoln, where he could stay with his uncle and take classes in shop and physical education. Lee Roy and Charlie Munger, who worked with him repairing cars, were regularly bullied by some boys at school. Enraged, Charlie started shooting people at random, and when the boys blocked his way once too often, Lee Roy gunned his car and ran into them.

Interested in the case, the journalist W. B. Jennings looks up Lee Roy’s parents, but they say he needs to talk to Maxine and send him on to Lone Tree. On the freight train that goes in that direction, Jennings is joined by Boyd and “Daughter.”

In Lone Tree, “Colonel” Clyde Ewing, his wife, Edna, and their valuable dog, Shiloh, are living in comfort in their huge trailer. The rest of the family camps out in the hotel. When Boyd arrives, he does not explain his relationship to “Daughter,” but everyone is polite. The family also makes Jennings feel welcome. Maxine organizes things, cooks, and cries about being the family workhorse. Boyd keeps talking about the bomb.

At the dinner table, Walter and Boyd, who is Walter’s hero, squabble about the past, and Walter calls Boyd a fool for ruining his life. When little Gordon wanders in with his grandfather’s loaded pistol, Jennings manages to get first the ammunition, then the weapon, away from the child. Tom sleeps through all of this, but when Etoile appears in costume, he rises up, calling for Samantha. The Colonel is looking for Shiloh. Some time later, Bud goes out into the night with his bow and arrows.

The trip back to Lone Tree is more difficult than Calvin expects it to be. At one point, Etoile is thrown out of the buggy. When Calvin runs to her, she pulls him down onto the grass and persuades him to make love to her.

Boyd finds a 1927 newspaper, with a story announcing that Lindbergh is over the Atlantic, and broods about time. Lois thinks his notions were ridiculous. Her love is reserved for little Gordon; however, she is well aware that the child has an evil streak and enjoys making her suffer.

In the middle of the night, the buggy comes around the corner of the hotel, carrying Calvin and Etoile, entwined in each other’s arms, and Bud with his trophy, the corpse of Shiloh. Lois shoots off her pistol, Tom starts toward the buggy and drops down dead, and Etoile keeps trying to announce that she and Calvin are married.

While the Colonel worries about his insurance and the rest of the family discusses what to do about their father, Calvin hitches up the mules to the covered wagon in which Tom was born. The Colonel and Edna drive off. Tom’s corpse is loaded into the covered wagon; Boyd, “Daughter,” Jennings, and Walter all climb on; and as Lone Tree vanishes in the dust behind them, Walter keeps urging Boyd to come back home to Nebraska.

Bibliography

Crump, G. B. The Novels of Wright Morris: A Critical Interpretation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978. Argues that the primary theme of Ceremony in Lone Tree is the unhappy effects that the heroic ideal produces in individuals and in society. Crump’s introductory discussion of earlier critical views is helpful. Includes an extensive bibliography.

Harper, Robert D. “Wright Morris’s Ceremony in Lone Tree: A Picture of Life in Middle America.” Western American Literature 11 (November, 1976): 199-213. In this exceptionally lucid essay, the novel is placed within the context of traditional American fiction. Unlike most of his contemporaries, Morris defines the hell of white, middle-class Americans.

Howard, Leon. Wright Morris. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1968. A concise overview of Morris’s work. In a brief discussion of Ceremony at Lone Tree, Howard points out how characters from earlier novels are fleshed out in this novel.

Knoll, Robert E., ed. Conversations with Wright Morris: Critical Views and Responses. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977. This unusual volume contains essays about Morris written by four major critics and an informal conversation between each of the critics and the author. Also includes an essay by Morris, a biographical summary, and a bibliography.

Madden, David. Wright Morris. New York: Twayne, 1964. The chapter on Ceremony in Lone Tree explores the symbolic importance of the major characters, as they represent stages in the eternal process of change. Justifies Morris’s characteristic ambiguity as an honest reflection of the human condition. Includes an annotated bibliography.

Pollak, Oliver B. “Wright Morris and the Jews.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 20, no. 4 (Summer, 2002): 18. Focuses on what Pollak calls the “Jewish motif” in Morris’s works, delineating the references to Jewish issues in selected books. In Ceremony in Lone Tree, Tom Scanlon hears anti-Semitic broadcasts on the radio.

Wydeven, Joseph J. Wright Morris Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1998. A scholar who has written often about Morris updates Madden’s study (above). Wydeven argues that Morris’s works are about American dreamers who viewed the West as the place where they could fulfill their desires. Includes a portfolio of Morris’s photographs.