Truitt has reason to know hell. When he was a child, his Bible-touting mother drove a needle through his hand to illustrate the idea of eternal punishment, and as an adult he has hated himself for the lusts that he believes have made his life miserable. When he reaches out for solace, advertising for "a reliable wife," he seems to be making a small, desperate gesture back toward a more gentle view of humanity. But neither Truitt, nor the strangely beautiful woman who arrives on that train are entirely what they seem. Between the two of them and Truitt's estranged son are bonds of love, hate, and desire that pull each character toward desperation, and even death.
Debut novelist Robert Goolrick has managed a minor miracle. In the kind of precise, literary prose that breathes life into his complicated characters, Goolrick, author of an acclaimed memoir, has also managed a rousing historical potboiler, an organic mystery rooted in the real social ills of turn-of-the-century America. Whether writing about the farms of Wisconsin or the fleshpots of St. Louis, he re-creates a full-bodied, believable environment, and he peoples these worlds with characters as sensitive, as tortured as any contemporary souls. The result is a detailed exploration of love, despair, and the distance people can travel to reach each other that is as surprising, and as suspenseful, as any beach read.
