[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]

my first time reading this author and she is Fa-Bu-Lous. like an unknown (to me) alice munroe. this book is considered a novel, but each chapter could stand alone as a short story. although it's advertised as 'fiercely american' (the aftermath of the vietmam war, the farm crisis, the boom of the tech sector) all these events were felt in canada too. the author's iowa could well be our prairies, her seattle our halifax - even the way she writes the geography feels so canadian to me:

city of brutal and wayward temperatures, of horizontal snow and lashing rains, city of instant potholes and blackened slush.