Excommunicados

Haverty's debut collection, winner of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, demonstrates how personal tragedy and death shape complicated family dynamics. Recurring characters, and themes of faith and inheritance, link the narratives. In the title story, set during 1967 in a unnamed town near Chicago, a pious sixth grader named Lionel Detweiler deals with confusion and resentment after an older classmate drowns while trying to impress a girl by running out onto an icy lake. In "Crackers," Geoffrey recalls the summer of 1973, the televised Watergate hearings, and taking his mother to Little Rock, Ark., to attend her father's funeral. When Geoffrey, 16 at the time, realizes he forgot to bring appropriate mourning attire, he agrees to wear a suit that belonged to his recently deceased grandfather. In "Trappings," Lionel Detweiler returns as an adult to visit his dying father-in-law in Maryland. Lionel is pushed to consider inheriting the role of "paterfamilias," figuratively and literally filling the seat at the head of the table. In contrast to the clean elegance of the prose, these stories dig through the messiest of human interactions. Haverty plows deep into the emotional turmoil of his characters to excavate shared truths. Historical events and figures contextualize the narratives and give greater depth, and the further the stories delve into the motivations of the protagonists, the more relatable they become. (Oct.)