Review by Frank Plowright
As Brazilian creator Wander Antunes points out in his introduction, Mark Twain was not in a good place when he created Hadleyburg for a short story, naming it America’s most honest town. What would it take, then, to prove such pride without foundation? Why, money of course!
One night a stranger arrives in Hadleyburg and deposits a heavy sack with a woman whose husband is absent, telling her the accompanying note will explain all. It tells a tale of an anonymous benefactor dispensing kindness in time of need having made an accompanying remark, which is noted in an envelope sealed within the sack. It otherwise contains gold in repayment from someone who’s now back on their feet. He trusts that in Hadleyburg, after all America’s most honest town, the sack will find its way to the correct person. Instead the town begins to unravel, secrets come to light and it’s not long before the residents of Hadleyburg are at each other’s throats.
It’s a clever, but cynical story, yet considerably altered by Antunes, the least of it including Twain’s most famous characters Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer as observers to events. Antunes’ introduction excuses the indulgence by claiming the pair as childhood friends, and because visually the story’s narrator required someone to talk with. It’s not an intrusive inclusion and doesn’t interfere with the fundamentals of the hypocrisy Twain’s intent on laying bare.
Antunes keeps the story true to the time it was written as the 19th century ended, and draws an appealing looking small community populated by distinctive characters. It’s a loose, expressive style, able to bring people to life, and excellent with the thunder and lightning and other tempestuous manifestations of nature occurring at the climax and echoing the mood.
The original bag is followed by several letters individually addressed to the town’s prominent residents. We’re privy to one, suggesting that the recipient is the rightful beneficiary of the sack, and providing a phrase to be offered as proof. Twain’s distressing, but probably accurate view of humanity is of greed superseding propriety and honesty, but the honesty of the feelings behind it lack any trace of Twain’s light subtlety. It becomes a hammer to the head.
Even worse is that Antunes omits the final chapter. A cut-off ending provides a finale, and Antunes writes his own epilogue, but his version entirely misses Twain’s point about the character of those charged with running the country. It leaves The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg as a fine adaptation as far as it goes, but hardly true to Twain’s intentions.
