When he hears that his fierce, beautiful twin sister Savannah, a well-known New York poet, has once again attempted suicide, he escapes his present emasculation by flying north to meet Savannah's comely psychiatrist, Susan Lowenstein.

Tom Wingo is an unemployed South Carolinian football coach whose internist wife is having an affair with a pompous cardiac man. This book has enough of a story arc that the fact that it’s not a full-fledged novel is somewhat frustrating: We learn about Lola’s romantic wanderings but not enough to suggest their full impact on Nathan, and while Nathan’s emotional evolution in the closing story is a pleasant surprise, it's a jarring one-a more intricately structured tale could give his character more resonance.Ī well-turned debut that airdrops its characters into an appealingly offbeat milieu.Ī flabby, fervid melodrama of a high-strung Southern family from Conroy ( The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline), whose penchant for overwriting once again obscures a genuine talent. Kimberling’s stories have depth, but he never forces a message on them a chapter in which Nathan comes across a human bone in a graveyard is handled with easy humor instead of ponderous metaphor. Violence abounds on Nathan’s turf-a snapping turtle takes off a friend’s thumb (hence the title), a drunk friend takes a two-by-four to a few parking meters, a stoner pal is stabbed, and Nathan himself gets pushed down a flight of stairs-but more as evidence of life’s absurdity than of its tragedy. As Nathan notes, southern Indiana is an odd mix of levelheaded Midwest culture and oddball Southern folkways, and Kimberling’s prose nicely evokes this culture clash: His unusual scenarios are rendered with a wry, self-deprecating wit. But at least the job introduces him to a colorful, if occasionally scarifying, array of characters: He meets diner patrons who reply to kids’ letters to Santa Claus, would-be mushroom-hunters, ersatz Klansmen and dimwitted bureaucrats who legislate on the environment without knowing the first thing about it. The pay is awful, and Nathan is conflicted about how his unfaithful girlfriend, Lola, helped him get the gig. Kimberling’s debut is a collection of linked stories narrated by Nathan Lochmueller, a smart but mostly luckless man who stumbles into a job monitoring bird patterns.

A sad-sack ornithologist navigates the wilds of southern Indiana and its quirky denizens.

Snapper by Brian Kimberling