Before Familiar Woods
A Novel
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3.7 • 42 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
For fans of David Joy and Christopher J. Yates, comes Ian Pisarcik's haunting debut novel exploring the fraught nature of families and the inescapable secrets that are out to cripple them.
On the outskirts of a town too tired for its own happenings, the boys were found dead inside a tent.
Three years later, their fathers have disappeared, too.
Ruth Fenn's son was the boy they blamed. For three years, Ruth has accepted her lot as pariah, focusing on her ailing mother and the children left in her care by the struggling single parents of North Falls, Vermont. But now the additional loss of her husband is too much to bear, and she has no choice but to overcome the darkness or be consumed by it. But as she edges closer to the truth, she begins to uncover some secrets that are better left buried.
That's when she meets Milk Raymond, a war vet who comes home to find his nine-year-old son abandoned by his mother. Unable to find work, with no idea how to be a father, Milk turns to Ruth for help. But as the mystery of Ruth's missing husband deepens, the fragile stability Milk has created for Daniel is shattered by the ill-fated return of Daniel's mother, who will stop at nothing to get her boy back.
As these unsettled and interconnected lives hurtle towards a devastating conclusion, both Ruth and Milk are about to learn that their dying Vermont town has more secrets than they ever thought possible--and there are those who will do anything to protect them.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In Ian Pisarcik’s searing debut, Vermont is far from the snowy paradise of holiday movies. His gritty thriller unfolds in the fading small towns of the Green Mountains—communities crushed by endemic poverty and drug addiction. Against this darkly compelling setting, we meet Pisarcik’s heroine, Ruth Fenn, who’s been scarred by hurtful gossip about her son’s strange death years earlier and the more recent disappearance of her husband. As Ruth reaches into the darkest corners of the town of North Falls looking for answers, she finds an unlikely ally in an Iraq War vet trying his best to raise a son who has mostly known his mother’s world of drug-fueled chaos. We felt both protagonists’ world-weariness in our bones, following them as one shock leads to another. Pisarcik expertly depicts the harsh landscapes his characters call home, where trusted institutions like the church, schools, and even law enforcement can’t stem the poison tide. This carefully crafted novel reminded us of Dennis Lehane’s gritty Boston mysteries, but with a small-town intimacy that delivers even more of an emotional punch.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pisarcik's outstanding debut begins in the aftermath of a tragedy. Three years after teenagers Mathew Fenn and William Downing died in a burst of violence triggered by heroin and fentanyl, Matthew's mother, Ruth, remains shunned by the townsfolk of North Falls, Vt. Though everyone in the dying town at least ignores the flood of illegal drugs, Ruth is slowly coming to terms with the fact that she does deserve personal blame; she should have done more to protect her son. Meanwhile, she meets Milk Raymond, an alienated Afghan War vet who's trying to figure out how to be a father to his son, Daniel, who has been traumatized by his mother's addiction. Then Ruth's husband vanishes, along with William's father. And so Ruth is forced into an awkward, tentative, altogether convincing investigation. Familiar landscapes become quietly ominous as the characters set about doing what they have to do. The action builds toward a devastating yet mildly hopeful conclusion. Pisarcik is a writer to watch.
Customer Reviews
A tragic story of a small towns destruction
This book was very authentic with its narrative and main protagonist. The poverty and sparseness of this small towns hardships and devastation from opiates poverty and destructive tendencies that come from boredom depression hopelessness and unemployment. The reader can feel the pain and the hopelessness of the characters and the lack of resources and aid that the states agencies are able to provide.