Pacific

February 11, 2013
Loneliness and fantasy bend reality in Drury’s thin new work (after The Driftless Area), which returns readers to the world and characters of his much-celebrated 1994 novel The End of Vandalism. In the opening pages, Micah Darling, the son of casual thief Tiny, is taken by his TV actress mother Joan out of his small Midwestern town to live in Los Angeles. He soon makes friends with a set of privileged teenage drug enthusiasts and falls in love, like everybody else, with the beautiful but anguished Charlotte. “It’s like a law of nature. Gravity, then Charlotte,” says one, sardonically. Back in the Midwest, meanwhile, PI Dan Norman is on the trail of conman Jack Snow, whose forgeries of Celtic artifacts have led him to a thousand-year-old stone found in a dead man’s hand in a bog in Ireland. As the investigation wears on, the lives of local residents are roiled when a mysterious and unhinged young woman arrives on a mission to recover the ancient Celtic stone. Cutting between decadent Los Angeles teenagers and weary smalltown men and women, all of whom struggle with loneliness and aimless desire, the two disjointed plot lines never really intersect. Still, uncanny dialogue, deadpan humor, a few morbid twists, and a considerable amount of quirk make for an engaging read. Agent: The Wylie Agency.

February 15, 2013
Getting by, getting over, getting laid: Drury's characters keep busy in his fifth novel, another wild ride. Some of them we've met before in Hunts in Dreams (2000) and The End of Vandalism (1994): Charles, Joan, Lyris and Micah. The action is split among small Midwest towns and Los Angeles. Charles, now known as Tiny, had a plumbing business which has since failed. His ex-wife, Joan, has moved to LA and has a juicy role in a TV show. Stepdaughter Lyris has moved into town to shack up with a young newspaper reporter. Joan re-appears to claim 14-year-old Micah and move him to the coast. She's going to take another stab at this mothering business; or is she just playing a role? These departures leave Tiny in an empty nest. Out of loneliness, he starts stealing boxes from the loading docks of big-box stores. That's kids' stuff compared to Jack Snow's criminal enterprise. Jack is an ex-con shipping fake Celtic artifacts from a warehouse. It's his bad luck to be tracked down by Sandra Zulma, his old childhood playmate. Sandra is now cuckoo, lost in a Celtic fantasy world, but with the single-minded energy of the mad, she is looking for a rock that Jack may own. Also on Jack's trail is Dan, once the sheriff but now working for a detective agency, though he hates the sleaze. He and his wife, Louise, are emblems of decency; their private sorrow is the loss of a daughter at birth. Meanwhile, in LA, Micah is experimenting with drugs and girls, while Joan is making the leap to the big screen and sleeping with the screenwriter. The second half includes a murder and a divorce; Micah, overwhelmed, calls his half sister Lyris, who flies out to help. There's no plot or protagonist, but a fine percussive beat sweeps the reader along. The always fresh perspective of this one-of-a-kind writer will have you responding like his character, who "laughed with surprise in her heart."

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April 15, 2013
In his acclaimed debut, The End of Vandalism (1994), Drury introduced readers to an offbeat cast of lovers, cheaters, and criminals from Grouse County, Iowa. Set partly in the same town, his fifth and latest book reinstates some of his inaugural characters, including former sheriff Dan Norman, now an undercover detective investigating an ex-con's scam selling forged Celtic relics; Tiny Darling, a small-time crook and unsuccessful plumber; Tiny's ex-wife, Joan, who lives in L.A. and stars in a forensic TV show; and her stepdaughter, Lyris, a former foster child, who has recently moved to town. The fragmented, multiperspective story line begins when Joan returns to Grouse County to reclaim her 14-year-old son, Micah, whose new West Coast lifestyle finds him dabbling in drugs and sex. All the jumping around and the lack of a lead role result in a spotty overall plotline, which is at times dizzying. But as in his previous masterful novels, Drury weaves carefully metered sentences, deeply felt scenes, and struggling characters into an endlessly entertaining tapestry of human comedy and small-town living.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)