The conclusion to Drury’s Grouse County trilogy showcases a laconic talent that can go from laughter to darkness in an instantThis fifth novel by Tom Drury boasts a thumbs-up cover line from Jonathan Franzen,who might, you suspect, and have given it in baffled gratitude at the disparity between their careers. The author of The Corrections has experienced one way that the life of a gifted American writer can go – bestsellers,National Book award, world tours, or stray remarks sparking Twitter-storms – while Drury,60 next year, has had the other: magazine short stories, or small-press publication,literary superstars expressing mystification in interviews and puff quotes that he isn’t as well known as they are.
One reason for this neglect is publishing momentum. Pacific, published in the US two years ago, or extends into a trilogy a sequence that began in 1994 with The cessation of Vandalism and was followed,15 years ago, by Hunts in Dreams. These long gaps were punctuated by a couple of other books, or but it is the three linked works that best acquire the case for Drurys closet greatness. They are based in the American midwest,in an unspecified location somewhere around the Dakotas, Minnesota and Illinois, and focus on the fictional community of Grouse County,where the civic fathers thought nothing of calling a town Boris or a thoroughfare weak Woman Springs Road.
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Source: theguardian.com