Kathryn Schwille

Kathryn Schwille's debut novel is structured as a series of short stories and vignettes all centered on the dying town of Kiser, deep in the thickets of east Texas. When the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated in the air in 2003, the pieces rained down on this rural community. Schwille explores the lives of the ordinary people in Kiser, their dreams and disappointments, all against that measure of time of before and after the disaster.

Schwille's writing is similar to that of Elizabeth Strout and Alice Munroe. She has an eye for detail and a love of the ordinary. She manages a compassion for all of her characters from the most hapless to the most manipulative. This is an impressive debut and I'm looking forward to reading whatever she writes next.… (mehr)