Boys and young men don't fare well in the small, struggling town on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River in Tim Johnston's eloquent and riveting Distant Sons. Three boys disappear in three consecutive years in the 1970s; afterward, a 15-year-old hangs himself. Marion Devereaux, now an old man, has been an outsider since the day he came to live with his grandmother and uncle when he was 11 years old. As one character astutely observes, "this place is not so kind to its sons."
When his truck breaks down, carpenter Sean Courtland drifts into town with no real plan. His presence causes the past and the present to intersect, changing the course of several lives. Soon after arriving, he gets in a bar fight with a man who is harassing waitress Denise Givens, whom Sean, in the melee, hits by accident. Not only does she not press charges but the two begin a wary relationship, while she takes out a restraining order against the other man. To fix his truck, Sean takes on a carpentry job for Devereaux, now a recluse whom townspeople avoid. He was long suspected in the disappearance of the three boys, even though no evidence surfaced. Sean also becomes friends with drifter Dan Young, who also begins work on the Devereaux house. Johnston (Descent) expertly crisscrosses these lives in a poignant novel that is both character-driven and action-packed. Distant Sons is about people rising to challenges they never expected. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer