Publishers Weekly - March 7, 2016

Review_FICTION PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ; MARCH 7, 2016 38

Helen Phillips’s story collection Some Possible Solutions combines high concepts and sly emotion (reviewed on p. 48).

The Pier Falls

Mark Haddon. Doubleday, $25.95 (320p)

ISBN 978-0-385-54075-9

Haddon’s ( The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) collection of nine short stories is a mélange of acutely observed domestic dramas and bizarre tales of life in outer space, ancient Greece, and a trip to a remote corner of the globe to retrieve a lost explorer. Highlights include “Bunny,” which recounts the story of a 27-year-old man who weighs 518 lbs. due to his addiction to junk food; “Breathe,” the story of a woman who returns to England from her expatriate life in California to face the relics of her desiccated family; and “Wodwo,” which combines family hol-iday-time melodrama with the appearance of a strange man who may be a character straight out of British folklore. “The Island,” about a princess who finds herself left on an island, and the titular “The Pier Falls,” which calmly recounts a seaside disaster, are quietly unrelenting in their descriptions of horror. Subtle strands often serve to connect the stories to one another, whether it’s a problematic mother or the smell of ammonia on someone’s dying breath. Though each story is beautifully written, Haddon is at his best when capturing the peculiarly dark, British mirth that accompanies disaster. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Associates. (May)

Allegheny Front

Matthew Neill Null. Sarabande (Consortium, dist.), $15.95 trade paper (192p) ISBN 978-1-

941411-25-4

The deceptively powerful stories in Null’s first collection, after his debut novel,

Honey from the Lion, create a map not only
of the geography of rural West Virginia
but also of its people. These are characters
inhabiting places largely ignored by the
outside world. In “Mates,” a man kills an
endangered bald eagle on his land, believing
himself to be above the law, and is then
stalked and tormented by the eagle’s
mate. In “Gauley Season,” a group of
ex-miners turn to operating rafting com-
panies after their mining jobs disappear,
but the promising new industry quickly
leads to tragedy. The rugged lives of a group
of log drivers in the late 1800s are
chronicled in “The Slow Lean of Time.”
In the astonishing “Telemetry,” a young
scientist’s camp on Back Allegheny
Mountain is visited by a local man and
his daughter, their presence forcing the
scientist to confront her relationship to
her own origins, which becomes a recur-
ring theme in the collection. Violence is
inevitable in these stories—guns are
almost always present, and they aren’t
just decoration—but there is plenty of
beauty, too. Landscape is an essential
element, as well as the constant presence
of wild animals, but Null focuses on the
ways that a setting can shape how we
identify with the world. The scope of the
collection contains voices from multiple
generations, and the result is a kaleido-
scopic portrait of a distinctive region of
North America, as well as an exercise in
finding the universal in the particular.
(May)

Britt-Marie Was Here

Fredrik Backman, trans. from the Swedish by Henning Koch. Atria, $26 (384p) ISBN 978-1-

5011-4253-6

The bestselling author of A Man Called
Ove returns with this heartwarming story
about a woman rediscovering herself
after a personal crisis. Sixty-three-year-old
Britt-Marie is a gentle, extremely
straightforward and believably flawed
protagonist who, after walking out on her
husband of 40 years, gets a job as the care-
taker of the almost-defunct Recreational
Center in the fictional European town of
Borg. Here she meets several characters
including two young children—Vega and
Omar, whose off-beat personalities and
lifestyles contribute to her growing self-
confidence and growth. Backman reveals
Britt-Marie’s need for order and her
obsession with bicarbonate soda and
Faxin—a cleaning agent—with clear,
tight descriptions. The true highlight is
Backman’s exposition of Britt-Marie’s
subtle actions—like the way she rubs her
ring finger—and thoughts. These details
of Britt-Marie’s character, what her husband
cited as her being “socially incompetent,”
increasingly endear her to the reader.
Insightful and touching, this is a sweet
and inspiring story about truth and
transformation. Fans of Backman’s will
find another winner in these pages. (May)

GodPretty in the Tobacco Field Kim Michele Richardson. Kensington, $15 trade paper (304p) ISBN 978-1-61773-735-0

Richardson’s (Liar’s Bench) deft second novel paints a picture of the hard life and bright dreams of young RubyLyn Bishop in Nameless, Ky., during the summer of 1969. Fifteen-year-old RubyLyn was orphaned young and is now the charge of her uncle, Gunnar Royal, a man with a harsh and rigid moral code. Henny Stump, her best friend, is so poor that her family resorts to selling their new baby. Her other neighbors, Beau Crockett and his three boys, are trouble. The only bright spots in her life are her secret love of Rainey Ford, her uncle’s field hand, the beautiful paper fortune tellers that she draws and folds, and her hope to win the $200 prize for her lush tobacco plants at the Kentucky State Fair. With the prize money, she plans to move to the big city of Louisville. Facing reality is never as easy as dreaming, but RubyLyn’s will may prove stronger than the grasp of Nameless. Richardson skillfully develops RubyLyn’s plight in this tale steeped in the tobacco hills of Kentucky. (May)