Recent Madison transplant Bonnie Nadzam was the recipient of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize in 2011 for her debut novel Lamb. Throughout her haunting sophomore release, Lions, she returns to the same breed of masterfully created melancholy and bittersweet characters that have defined her work.
In the town of Lions, Colo. (population 117), deep economic despair has set in and the local diner and sleepy train station are virtually all that remain on the edge of the prairie, so when a mysterious stranger comes to town (and is later found dead in the local water tower), most residents take it as a very ill omen.
Among them is the ambitious, outward-looking Leigh, eager to leave Lions far behind and head off to college. Gordon, her 17-year-old boyfriend, is yearning to go with her, but after his father, the owner of the sole operating manufacturing plant in town, unexpectedly succumbs to a heart attack and leaves Gordon with a strange and unusual deathbed request, both young paramours must struggle to decide their fates. In this nearly deserted place, the hapless characters that linger behind are forced to grapple with both their painful family histories and the barren landscape that surrounds them.
Mesmerizing and somber, Lions is a memorable story of small-town life on the edge of collapse and the citizens who are equally tormented by the extraordinary costs and obligations of remaining, and the uncertainties and expectations of walking away. Powerfully told, Lions beautifully captures America’s changing countryside and the tumultuous lives of some of its most poignant inhabitants. Nadzam will discuss Lions at Boswell Book Co. on Tuesday, July 12 at 7 p.m.
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Book Happening:
Poetry in the Park
6:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 12
Juneau Park
Intersection of North Prospect and East Kilbourn avenues
The locally grown Poetry in the Park series, which kicked off its second year last month in Juneau Park, returns to its historic venue overlooking Lake Michigan. This month’s lineup features former Milwaukee poet laureate and current UW-Milwaukee professor Brenda Cárdenas alongside KJ Prodigy/Kavon Jones, Glenn Shaheen and Peter Burzynski. This free event will take place rain or shine.
