Sinking Bell

The characters in Louis’s lyrical debut collection (after the poetry volume Currents) aspire for something more than the drudgery of their low-paying jobs. In “As Meaningless as the Origin,” the unnamed narrator, a Navajo construction worker, overcomes a handful of obstacles on his way to taking off for a new life in Sitka, Alaska. In “Silence,” protagonist Katie, a cleaner, books a trip to Mexico City for her and her husband, a struggling musician with family in Oaxaca, hoping to help him and their marriage. “Trickster Myths” tracks the awkward but sexually charged relationship between an aspiring Navajo writer and Bella, a white girl who dances in a strip club and meets him in a writing workshop. Other stories follow an unsteady excursion to a legendary cave, a Navajo grandmother sharing an ancestral story with her family, and a young custodian at an animal testing site desperate to lose his virginity. Louis’s prose carries his poetic sensibility with a decided rhythm and resonant detail, and the narrators achingly convey their outsider status. The result is immersive and powerful. (Sept.)