Shotgun Lovesongs

December 2, 2013
Butler uses multiple narrators to tell the story of a group of friends, born and raised in Little Wing, Wis., in this affecting but precious debut novel. The book opens with Hank, who became a farmer and stayed in the small town to raise a family with his wife Beth. Lee, the indie rocker who made it big but regularly comes back to Little Wing, has his say, along with Kip, who traded commodities in Chicago but has moved back. And Ronnie is a little “slow,” damaged by rodeo riding. Their voices and their memories create a rich, overlapping narrative that is, at bottom, a love letter to the Midwest and its small, mostly forgotten towns. The characters are in that restless period of their early 30s: Hank and Beth have a family, but both long for something different (including more money); Lee gets married and divorced and wrestles with fame (the title of the book refers to a bestselling album of his); Kip is trying to write the next chapter of his life. The author romanticizes the landscape and the notion of community—as if such ideals were limited to small town, agrarian dreams. More seriously, his characters are too similar—all of them too lyrical and too insightful. Butler’s prose is often beautiful, and the narrative churns along well, but the book just isn’t convincing enough to get the reader to buy all the way in. First printing: 150,000 copies.