Fellow Mortals: A Novel
*Starred Review* Carefully yet implacably drawing upon the theme that we are all connected, Mahoney’s quietly powerful debut snapshots the lives of suburban neighbors who become bound to one another through an almost unbearably banal yet utterly real tragedy. Henry Cooper is a mail carrier, husband, and very decent guy when he one day lights up his cigar while on his route and tosses the match into the gutter in the sort of careless gesture anyone might make. This gesture, however, burns down a house and kills someone else’s wife, touching off an even darker firestorm of events for the neighborhood’s residents. The shell-shocked widower, Sam Bailey, retreats into the woods. Henry’s wife, Ava, holds firm to her love for her husband as she soldiers on. High-powered Peg sanctimoniously blames Henry and refuses his offers of atonement. Billy and his wife, Sheri, continue to destroy their own lives as they observe their street’s meltdown. As the characters warily orbit one another, hidden desperation, longings, and demons rear up and spark further tragedy. With the barest glimmer of hope to buoy the calamities of his deeply earnest, lyrical story, Mahoney can share shelf space with Dave Eggers and Stewart O’Nan. --Julie Trevelyan