Read March 2003
An early work by Russo. Has the familiar themes of small, dead-end towns with no-account lives rendered with surprising tenderness, thereby highlighting their pathos. There's no particular story here; if anything, the story is about how the town's repeated attempts to become part of the bigger fabric of life keep falling short. Less rollicking than Russo's more recent works, but clearly the training ground on which he cut his teeth; worth reading for that purpose alone.