i have no idea why this book has the cover that it has. this is an understated, weird midwestern-gothic novel about coincidence, throwing rocks at moving vehicles, mailing money to strangers, reenactments of bank robberies. i guess it's sort of hard to distill that into a cover image but still, pretty girl with freckles in a field of dirt is definitely not the correct vibe.

i like tom drury *a lot* -- "end of vandalism" was a revelation, albeit a quiet / subtle / downbeat one. this is shorter and throttles back the deadpan humor a bit in favor of a stranger story and crystalline-mundane dialogue. the climactic scene that shifts from the "bank robbery days" play to the orchard is glorious, even if the plotting required to set it up is a little clunky. if i had to boil this down i'd say it's fargo but with ghosts instead of cops. which i think is a pretty good idea.

this set me to:
-looking at "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" (source of epigraph)
-wondering whether it has anything to do with Melville's Pierre (there are some structural/conceptual similarities)

choice nugs:
"There a pack of tricolor beagles strained at their leashes and bayed at the old man, Tim Geer, who sat eating a grilled cheese sandwich in the back of one of three police cruisers now in the lot. The dogs did not seem to realize their job was done or maybe they only wanted the sandwich."

"Roland's graduation picture hung on the wall. He looked wary in the photograph, as if listening to a complicated offer that might be a ripoff."

"She'd had some hard times. Something begins to fade from the eyes after too much of anything. She had thick dry reddish hair and white scars on either side of her face as if she had been attacked by a bear.

In fact, she said, she'd done this with her own fingernails one time after going too many days on speed. Pierre did not know what to say to that, but she smiled and nodded, as if the pain had faded, leaving only a sort of impersonal amazement."