Volt

Murder lies at the heart of a number of the short stories in Volt, the debut collection of Chicago native Alan Heathcock, forcing the book's characters to either hide the deed or discover the wrongdoer. Within a framework of stories all set in the fictional town of Krafton somewhere in the American heartland, Heathcock's stern men and women drift in and out of each others' lives (and stories) while reckoning with notions of guilt, redemption, and justice. A young boy goes missing in a grieving woman's cornfield maze and she and her daughter share a grim secret as to his whereabouts. A farmer, tortured by guilt over the accidental death of his son, leaves his wife and drifts across the countryside, searching for a way to forgive himself. Heathcock keeps his stories clear of modern conveniences like computers or cell phones, creating a dreamy, timeless atmosphere. Yet too often the striking realism of his prose is undermined by an unfortunate tendency to slip into Cormac McCarthy-like passages of "poetic" spirituality, especially when straining to reach for some ultimate, momentous truth about the meaning of life. By turns fascinating and banal, Volt shows Heathcock to be a talented writer lost in the shadows of his influences.