Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial writer Fuller (Fragments
) delivers a resonant, intricate saga of the multigenerational Bailey/Schumpeter family of Abbeville, a farming community in central Illinois. Karl Schumpeter goes to work as a clerk at his uncle’s logging outfit before moving at the end of the 19th century to cosmopolitan Chicago to deal in grain futures. Once married, young Karl returns to Abbeville and prospers as an entrepreneur and banker. Almost 40 at the outbreak of WWI, Karl oddly travels to France to serve in the ambulance corps (showing shades of Hemingway, another Illinoisan). Later, after Black Tuesday, Karl’s illegal loans to friends and family land him in prison. Impoverished and humiliated, Karl eventually returns home to Abbeville and the shell of his former life. Years later, Karl’s grandson, George Bailey, loses his livelihood in the dot-com bust and searches for meaning and strength by examining Karl’s earlier travails. However, the dot-com bust pales when juxtaposed to the 1929 crash. The tales of the past generations feel more compelling and immediate. Fuller’s a talented writer, and his gifts are on full display when chronicling Karl’s life and times. (June)
