91ÁÔÆæ

Floods and Fires, the first collection of stories by Dan Leach, tests Marilynne Robinson’s assertion that “Families will not be broken.” In the title story, a father harbors his fugitive son from the town bully-turned-sheriff and meditates on suffering in small towns. In “Everything Must Go,” an estranged husband spots his ex-wife’s belongings at a garage sale and grapples with an onset of paranoia. In “Transportation,” a trailer park outcast uses wild acts of imagination to transcend his bleak existence. Wrestling against limitations that are Southern in aesthetic but universal in nature, the characters in Floods and Fires seek redemption in the face of hard times. Quirky, outlandish, but in the end emotionally poignant, Dan Leach’s stories follow imperfect people struggling against their circumstances, their histories, and, most importantly, themselves.