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Start giftingThe Underworld
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Learn moreKevin Canty tells a story based on a real incident that begins with a disastrous fire in an isolated silver-mining town in Idaho in the 1970s. Everyone in town had a friend, lover, brother, or a husband killed in the mine. The Underworld traces the lives of the handful of survivors and their loved ones—a young widow with twin children, a college student trying to make a life for himself in another town, a life-long hard-rock miner—as they struggle to come to terms with the loss. It’s a tough, hardworking, hard-drinking town, a town of prostitutes and priests and bar fights, but nobody is tough enough to get through this undamaged.
This is a powerful and unforgettable tale about small-town lives and the healing power of love in the midst of suffering.
Kevin Canty is the author of several novels and three short-story collections and has been published in the New Yorker, Esquire, GQ, and the New York Times Magazine.
Richard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His book, The Overstory, won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
Reviews
“Paul Michael Garcia narrates this fictionalized account of the aftermath of a real-life 1970s underground fire that killed 91 miners. With a sense of detachment, Garcia keeps the emotions close to his chest and the action and observations close to the bone…It’s a very American story, and Garcia’s reading is as hard, dark, and honest as the mountains that the townsfolk depend on. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
“An excellent and terse account…Canty keeps his descriptions to a minimum, depending instead on taut stretches of introspection and screenplay-ready dialogue.”
“Canty’s real genius lies in his subtly drawn depiction of the emotional and psychological landscape of this ‘big incomprehensible thing.’”
“A masterly story of heartbreak and struggle against fate and bad luck while heroic themes of love and forgiveness carry this memorable novel.”
“Canty does a fine job of showing how disaster can lacerate a place or people without utterly destroying hope.”
“Canty has a gift for turning the commonplace into the extraordinary by asking the right questions and allowing the truth to unfold.”
“Stunning and deeply moving…The voices of these characters are as memorable as their struggle to keep going in the face of tragedy.”
“Any reader will empathize with his sometimes flawed, sometimes valiant people, as they wrestle with the perplexities of social class, family, and love.”
“A timely reminder of the tremendously complicated questions communities in the American West face…These are superbly drawn people in an impeccably told tale.”
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