DEBUT Pushcart Prize nominee McIlwain debuts with this
LJ Best Book, an affecting collection of stories that plumb the hardscrabble life of Pennsylvania’s mining, milling, and farming towns, where diners and bait shops abound. A father and daughter bond while fishing, which helps heal her health problems and a heart broken by her mother’s leaving. A woman hopes for a baby after four miscarriages, while a husband builds a cherry-stained box that his wife icily rejects. A widower falls in love with a doe that recalls the wife he lost; he seeks to protect it from hunters even as his family worries about his mental health. Elsewhere, outsiders who have come for the hunting but instead wreak havoc are punished by the locals.
VERDICT In fresh, bristly language, McIlwain captures rural life from a new angle. A surprising read.
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