Ash Falls

April 17, 2017
In Read’s dark and suspenseful debut novel, the folks of the Pacific Northwest mountain town of Ash Falls wonder what convicted murderer and escaped convict Ernie Luntz will do if he comes back home. And they have plenty to worry about. Ernie escapes custody from a car crash during a routine prisoner transfer, disappearing into the mountains. In Ash Falls, Ernie’s ex-wife, Bobbie, is the high school nurse. She has concerns about their son, Patrick, and the illegal drugs she uses. Hank Kelleher, former high school teacher, now a marijuana dealer, has a soft spot for Bobbie, and worries that Ernie may have known all along. And Patrick is conflicted over his father’s unexpected freedom and his hidden wish for him to be recaptured. The townspeople remembers the killing and are consumed with sweaty fear or perverse curiosity, most wishing they lived somewhere else. The sassy, trashy, and very smart motel maid, Roxanne, has seen it all unfold and understands better than anyone: “People walk around this town like a bunch of trapped animals, but the only one trapping them is themselves.” The story culminates with a drug deal gone bad, and then Ernie comes back into town. This is a well-crafted, subtle psychological thriller.

May 1, 2017
A man's past haunts the citizens of an isolated, rural Pacific Northwest town.Ernie Luntz has been serving time in Walla Walla for murder and is now being transported by car to a medium security prison when the driver has a heart attack and the car crashes. Ernie escapes and heads for his hometown, Ash Falls. Read (The Lyncher in Me, 2008) meticulously weaves the gritty, hard-knock lives of many men and women from this impoverished, rural town in mountainous Washington into "tight little complicated knots." It's October, a "time of mud and muck and creeping molds," of "gloom and regret." A series of chapters, each titled after a different character (or sometimes two) and told in the third person with frequent flashbacks, are our signposts. Ernie's wife, Bobbie, is a part-time nurse at the high school their son, Patrick, attends. He works at Tin Dorsay's mink farm after school. He's gay and likes Mama T's son, Shadow. Hank Kelleher, who's pushing 60, used to teach at the high school and now sells pot for medicinal purposes to neighbors. He and Bobbie might have had an affair. His sister, Lyla, is married to Jonas Henry. Their son, Eugene, Hank's nephew, is married to Marcelle. The young couple lives in Eugene's parents' basement. Marcelle works as a housekeeper at the Sleep Inn run by Melvin White. Eugene works at Benny's garage. Chapter by chapter we come to know these people, their struggles and fears. We learn that four years earlier Ricky Cordero said "something," maybe directed at Patrick. Bobbie "couldn't tell what." Ernie, a Vietnam War vet who suffered from "demons" and had a "hair trigger temper," beat Ricky to death. In this small town that "can't keep its mouth shut," word of Ernie's escape looms like a threatening thundercloud over the forests and rivers. A moody, haunting foray into rural Americana in the mold of Daniel Woodrell and Christian Kiefer.

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July 1, 2017

Set in autumn during the 1980s, this novel portrays the physical and psychological toll of being imprisoned and the attendant hope of being released. When a van driver has a heart attack during a routine prisoner transfer, convicted murderer Ernie Luntz escapes, placing his hometown of Ash Falls, WA, on edge. The anticipation of his return stirs up much unfinished business among those he left behind. For Ernie's wife, Bobbie, and gay son, Patrick, it means reconciling their love for Ernie with their hatred of his crime. For Hank Kelleher, a former high school history teacher-turned-reclusive marijuana dealer, it means facing up to the consequences of his affair with Bobbie, the high school nurse. For Marcelle Henry, married young to town bad boy Eugene Henry, whose taunts incited the crime that sent Ernie to jail, it means confronting a bad marriage and an unexpected pregnancy. VERDICT Though set in a bleak place at a bleak time, Read's novel ultimately is one of hope. As it winds to its conclusion, each character finds a key to closing the self-created distance between who they are and who they'd like to be, culminating in an extraordinary Christmas Eve act of love. Most readers will enjoy.--Lawrence Rungren, Andover, MA

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2017
This panoramic look at the small town of Ash Falls, Washington, is part rural fiction, part northwest noir. The book opens with convicted murderer Ernie Luntz escaping a van accident as he is transported between prisons. Vignettes build upon one another to reveal whom Ernie murdered and how that act has impacted his wife, his teenage son, a teenage bride, a mink farmer, a drug dealer, and other Ash Falls folks. The backward-looking chapters that lead up to the murder are just as tense as those taking place in the present day. There is a menace in the air, but one senses that it's not entirely due to Ernie's escape. Everyone in the town has things they're trying to escape, and they will all go to varying lengths to get where they want to be. In this fine first novel, Washington State elementary-schoolteacher Read deftly portrays the competing feelings of suffocation and loneliness that can breed in small towns. Pair this with Daniel Woodrell's marvelous Tomato Red (1998).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)