It’s about gambling, drinking, prison, and an unlikely but believably rendered relationship between two unlucky men. It’s a hard-boiled existentialist novel, and ultimately unlike any other I’ve read.

It was mostly a year of some pleasant foothills in my reading life, and just one great peak.

Starring semi-rural characters down on their luck in places from Illinois to the outskirts of Nashville, these eight stories contain both humor and compassion about people and an appreciation for nature that is never heavy-handed.