Fractures: A Novel
*Starred Review* Enviably the heir of 100 acres of pristine farmland, retired architect Frank Joyner is the last holdout in the gas companies’ competition to obtain his lease to drill into the promising and controversial Marcellus Shale. It’s not an easy decision to make, and Frank feels the pressure from his extended family members as well as his own grown children and, most poignantly, his 11-year-old grandson, Danny. But long before the effects of hydrofracking can begin to impact the Joyners, the family’s own self-inflicted wounds, scars that go back generations, are reopened. Suicide claimed the lives of two of Frank’s ancestors, and as a youth, Frank attempted it himself. Now his son, Mickey, a sensitive but willful renegade, finds himself at odds with the only community he has ever called home, while Mickey’s daughter, Jen falls in love with the man responsible for bringing the demon to their doorstep. Herrin’s deeply contemplative examination of this contentious topic is less about the environmental fallout from an invasive destruction of the land and more about the emotional fragility of a family who feels all too deeply the loss of a way of life. --Carol Haggas