I don't usually do book reviews, but I took Clifford Garstang's In An Unchartered Country with me to Maine and I couldn't stop reading it. At first delve, it's a collection of short stories linked by location (Virginia's Blue Ridge) but the wonderfully canny thing is that as you read through, you realize the characters walk through each other's stories. Garstang has the ability to put the reader right inside the location--whether the location is a gift shop, a flooded river lit by police lights, or in the front yard of a man who has just shot his dog. I don't think the reader needs to know the Blue Ridge to love these stories. Garstang's writing is clean and sharp and draws both characters and location with a clarity that cuts through the sticky nostalgia and sentimentality that can sometimes accompany mountain stories. A good book for travelling.
(Winner of the IPPY Gold Medal for Mid-Atlantic--Best Regional Fiction 2010.)
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