The Underworld
Description
In The Underworld, Kevin Canty tells a story inspired by the facts of a disastrous fire that took place in an isolated silver mining town in Idaho in the 1970s, in which almost everyone in town lost a friend, a lover, a brother, or a husband. The Underworld imagines the fates of a handful of fictional survivors and their loved ones--Jordan, a young widow with twin children; David, a college student trying to make a life for himself in another town; Lionel, a lifelong hard-rock miner--as they struggle to come to terms with the loss. It's a tough, hard-working, hard-drinking town, a town of whores and priests and bar fights, but nobody's tough enough to get through this undamaged. A powerful and unforgettable tale about small-town lives and the healing power of love in the midst of suffering.Product Details
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About the Author
Kevin Canty compte parmi les auteurs américains les plus importants de sa génération.
Remarqué dès son premier livre, Étrangère en ce monde (Éditions de l'Olivier, 1996), il s'est imposé comme un formidable observateur des ètres, des couples, des familles et des lignes de faille qui les traversent. S'inscrivant dans la grande tradition naturaliste du roman américain, et souvent comparé par la critique américaine à Richard Ford, Raymond Carver ou Hemingway, Kevin Canty possède ce style si particulier, efficace et minimaliste, qui se prète à merveille aux drames intimes. Son précédent roman Toutes les choses de la vie est paru chez Albin Michel en 2014. Il vit à Missoula (Montana) et enseigne à l'université.
Reviews
Canty offers a masterly story of heartbreak and struggle against fate and bad luck while heroic themes of love and forgiveness carry this memorable novel.
An excellent and terse account of a devastating mine fire in Idaho in 1972...taut stretches of introspection and screenplay-ready dialogue [reveal] characters acting against their own best interests...Canty honors labor and thoughtfully challenges the commitment the townspeople make to the thing that is so clearly ruining them.
If you haven't spent an evening or two in the grand company of Kevin Canty's work, now is your time to start...Canty's chosen genre is fiction, but he peddles truth.
Canty's care with prose recalls Raymond Carver, and his empathy for the common man extends a bloodline that reaches back to the likes of John Steinbeck and William Saroyan...Canty has a gift for turning the commonplace into the extraordinary by asking the right questions and allowing the truth to unfold.
[P]olished, deeply empathetic...Canty's controlled, spare prose provides an ideal vehicle for excavating these emotional depths...His sculpted, lapidarian cadence deftly navigates the terrain separating numbness and pain...to illuminate the fragility and preciousness of life.
The Underworld pierces with busted hearts, broken families, and the gristly days of work and drink that bind them. A lovely, melodic, and unsparing look at small-town life in the West.--Deborah Reed
