Zupan’s The Ploughmen

       And he told the deputy that the gulls began to arrive. They appeared first as minute white tufts against the green of the river trees and he turned and made a pass going away and then suddenly they were among the furrows behind the plow, as though lie the soldiers of myth they sprang from the ground itself. He wondered how they found him and thought they may have followed the dust cloud or perhaps like wolves or hounds on a blood scent the could smell the new-turned earth. He threw the tractor into neutral and sat watching as the birds gorged themselves on tiny infant mice he had exposed from under small rocks and glistening worms as long as garter snakes, and crickets and partridge nestlings and even above the pothering of the engine he could hear the gulls scream. There seemed to be no communion among them. They fought over every mouthful, the most successful of them gagging down pieces that would have choked a hyena and in the chaos of screeches there were times it seemed they would set upon one another until one gruesome bird remained, engorged and wallowing through the furrows unable even to raise his bloodied wings to fly.  (40)

Kim Zupan’s The Ploughmen explores humans’ relationship to the land and how this relationship affects us. While Val’s wife Glenda is “swallowed up whole” by the land, both Gload and Val himself find solace and comfort in the land’s beauty, formidability, and ironically enough, its privacy. Working as a motif throughout the book, the gulls in the passage above represent humans’ unapologetic voyeurism, or, how we incessantly compare ourselves with others in order to feel accepted, loved, or better about our own situations. Like gulls, Zupan recognizes how we prey upon the disadvantages of others in order to feel adequate about our own lives. But both Val and Gload recognize this human flaw and instead seek a simpler and less judgemental relationship with their surroundings.

Val and Gload bond over their shared love of the Montana landscape and the comfort it provides them; however this comfort is often interrupted by the judgements of others. Just as the gulls “gorged themselves on tiny infant mice...exposed,” Deputy Wexler preys upon others’ misfortune to obtain power, which Gload points out to Val midway in the novel, and which Gload seems to rationalize explains his preference for Val’s companionship. However, Val is guilty of this “gorging” himself, as he must document the deaths of the hikers to make his living. This “gorging” also explain Val’s severe reaction at the doctor's’ party early in the novel, in which he cannot keep himself from comparing his own life with the affluent and feeling threatened by their wealth, good looks, and hold over his wife Glenda. In this way, both Val and Gload are aware of how “there seem[s] to be no communion among” men, demonstrated by their withdraw from conventional society.

While Gload attempts to differentiate himself from this metaphorical “gorging” by making a life literally murdering lots of people, Val struggles to find connection with others, and is plagued by the guilt and unresolved feelings from coming upon his mother’s suicide as a child. In this way, Val cannot escape seeing himself as the “one gruesome bird remain[ing]...unable to raise his bloodied wings to fly” or overcome this event’s hold on his psyche. It isn’t until the near end of the novel that Val begins to show signs of self-recovery when he cannot photograph the corpse of a teen girl who took her life by burying herself. For Val, this change in behavior not only represents his acceptance of his mother’s death but also his ability to finally forgive himself from the guilt and misfortune of his discovery of similar scenes. 

Zupan’s critique of the current human condition is reminiscent of Laurence Shames’s “The More Factor” in which he explores our relationship with excess. While Gload is a serial killer, readers can empathize with his rejection of conventional society and him seeking unlikely companionship with Val, which might be what saves Val from getting “swallowed up” by his own despair.