cover image Cementville

Cementville

Paulette Livers. Counterpoint (PGW, dist.), $25 (304p) ISBN 978-1-61902-243-0

In Livers’s debut, it’s 1969, and seven young men from the most well-respected families of Cementville, Ky., are coming home from Vietnam in body bags. Also returning home is still-breathing Lt. Harlan O’Brien, the town’s former football star. O’Brien and the other seven all joined the National Guard in the hopes of avoiding real conflict, but war found them anyway. Long, lyrical chapters explore the wounds wrought on those left bereft, but Livers ups the ante by putting a killer on the loose in the small town. And with townsfolk already on edge, mutual respect and tradition are replaced by fear and suspicion. Livers uses each chapter to explore a different facet of war and its aftermath. At times, sorting out the different families and individuals can be confusing; the most distinctive characters include Wanda, an agoraphobic librarian, for whom the tragedy provides an incentive to reconnect with town and family, and Maureen, a teenager whose chronicling of events offers a sort of naïve insight. But most of all, the novel comes off as an atmospheric piece, a portrait of a traditional town on the brink of much change, whether welcomed or not. (Mar.)