Glad News of the Natural World: A Novel

This book is a sequel of sorts to one of my favorite books ever, A Short History of a Small Place. In this one, Louis Benfield, Jr. is grown up now, and because his daddy wanted him to, he's moved to New York City where life is different from life in the small town of Neely, North Carolina, but sort of the same too. Louis still spends most of him time observing people and appreciating their quirks.

Pearson's very much a Southern storyteller. He wanders all over the place, telling little vignettes, introducing minor, but interesting characters, and only occasionally advancing the plot. But you don't read Pearson for plot, you read him for prose like this, a wonderful description of Louis's father:

He had a cynical streak, my father did, an show more acidic sense of humor, a talent for lively improvisational deflating commentary, a decided preference for native decency over organized religion, a profound aversion to nostalgia, little use for politics, an abiding and largely unindulged enthusiasm for cribbage and a deep affection for flue-cured burley tobacco in the form of Tareytons.

And this bit where he's just spent several hilarious paragraphs describing the way Cousin Spencer took up cross-dressing after his mother died:

Even I'd picked up on the overcharged atmosphere in the grocery mart where a couple of dozen citizens were attempting all at once to keep themselves from dropping their jaws and shrieking, "Sweet Jesus!" which they'd all been raised to know would be considered impolite.

Pearson is gentle and funny and seems to genuinely care about his characters. And you find yourself caring about them too, wanting to share their lives, even if it's just for a little while. show less