Nebraska inaugurates its new Flyover Fiction series, edited by Ron Hansen, with this slim, elegiac collection by the author of Secrets of the Tsil Café
. "Nothing ever happens out nowhere, at the edge of Moscow, Kansas," reads the first story's closing line—but of course the preceding pages belie that, as Moscow births more than its share of preternaturally gifted musicians and witnesses a few accompanying dramas. "Shopping" is a quick, devastating look at the thorny relationship between a middle-aged gay man and his crotchety father, a connection that shifts over the course of a trip to the grocery store; "Midlin, Kansas, Jump Shot" is a short, poignant investigation of the effects that grief and guilt have on a high school basketball player. In "The Bocce Brothers," orphaned 12-year-old twins wager on a game of bocce with a priest—if they win, he must reveal the name of their father—while in the poignant "Topeka Underground," a young boy forms an almost wordless bond with his strange, elderly neighbors. In all these stories, Averill illuminates the magical in the mundane: just because the rest of the world flies right over Kansas doesn't mean they're not missing out. Agent, Stephanie von Hirschberg
. (Apr.)
