The Dispossessed

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Don Carpenter's new novel is set in a lovely small town. The village residents live in an uneasy truce with the longhairs, street philosophers, drifters, runaways, and others of simple heart who make the streets of the town their home and haven: the crazies provide color and amusement, but they also lend an air of unpredictability, uncertainty, and instability--they present a visible challenge to the decidedly middle-class values of the townspeople.

The center of this quiet village is The Depot, a coffee shop and gathering spot for locals and travellers alike. The commuters assemble in the morning for coffee and in the evening for wine while they unravel the mysteries of the late twentieth century. The street people emerge from the woods each day to sun themselves in town, watching the action and hanging out. The police play their regular chess game, keeping the clean and the unclean in their appropriate places. Everything is very, very normal. Until a murder is committed. And then a second. Rumors of rape and mutilation spread. Daily affairs and affairs of the heart are disrupted. A quiet frenzy envelops the whole community--commuter or bum, no one is safe.

The town fathers and their police focus on their most visible "enemies," the people of the street, as suspects: without the disarray their presence provides this never would have happened. Order is suddenly much more attractive than justice.

Don Carpenter weaves a riveting tale of darkness and evil unfortunately as current as this morning's paper. His ear for dialogue captures a cast of characters as real as the evening news. A story of our time by one of America's finest writers.