From Publishers Weekly
The depressed industrial Boston suburb of Lawton Falls is the setting for this impressive fiction debut. In 11 linked short stories, Lyons portrays a bleak environment including corrupt politicians, two-bit mafiosi, abandoned textile mills and characters whose one true talent is survival. Among the well-drawn characters are a young Puerto Rican mother and laundress who appears in various stories and, we discover in "Brothers," was raped as a teen; Jerry Gallagher, the bitter newspaper reporter and protagonist of the title story, who learns--40 years too late--that his one true love reciprocates his emotions; and the priest in "The Miracle," who, when faced with the prospect of losing his parish, makes a deal with the neighborhood devil. The writing here is brisk and clean, if unexceptional, and the stories are finely detailed.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
Like Sherwood Anderson's classic Winesburg, Ohio , Lyons's debut collection of 11 stories--winner of the Associated Writing Programs 1992 Award in Short Fiction--lifts the rock off a seemingly sleepy town to cast light on the quietly desperate secret lives of its inhabitants. Lawton Falls, Massachusetts is a dying mill city whose ethnically mixed population includes politicians, priests, blue-collar workers, mixed-up teens, and the newspaperman of the title tale who, at the end of an undistinguished career, wrestles with the morality of making "a great deal of money in an illicit fashion." Lyons, a remarkably gifted writer, renders these slices of life with compassion and a keen eye for telling detail. Highly recommended.
- David Sowd, formerly with Stark Cty. District Lib., Canton, OhioCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
