Failure, Filth, and Fame: Joe Ranger and the Creation of a Vermont Character

A newcomer to the area, when asked much later about entering Joe
Ranger’s house, blurted out that she had “never, never seen such a place”
before. Readers of Failure, Filth, and Fame will never, never again encounter
as rich, imaginative and unpredictable a volume of regional history as
Cameron Clifford has produced. The locale is the borderland between
Pomfret and Hartford Vermont. The narrative focuses on a failed farmer
who became an unkempt hermit living near the road now named for him;
his fame came as a regional “character” with a media-created public personality.
The time period covered stretches from Joe’s birth in 1875 to present
day battles over development along the roads Joe frequently hiked. The
story specifics aren’t fiction: they depend mostly on entries from the dozens
of daily diaries written by Joe and his neighbors, as well as the author’s close
reading of town records, his intimate knowledge of his protagonist’s stomping
grounds, and his interviews with many who personally knew Joe Ranger.

A quick sampling of what readers will learn about. The details of dairy
farming before gentrification began; Dartmouth Professor Al Foley’s career
as a Vermont humorist; true stories of native-flatlander interaction; early
Valley News history; the ground rules town highway officials apply when
deciding when and where to plow snow; the regional tradition of keeping a
diary; the ups and downs of Quechee Lakes’ relationships with adjoining
property owners. Chapter 10, a straight forward description of the last few
days Joe Ranger lived, is by itself worth the price of admission.

Joe Ranger and Cameron Clifford share(d) a passionate commitment to
the same geographical space. The two coming together in print lets all of
us participate vicariously in the pleasure that commitment has given.
Readers of Failure, Filth, and Fame will never forget the man whose life it
chronicles. Never.

Jere Daniell
Dartmouth College