Nights Below Station Street

One thing that's especially hard to do in a small town is change your life. Everyone knows who you are, and sometimes they don't like it when you try not to be who you're supposed to be. Joe Walsh is giant of a man, a mechanical genius whose bad back keeps him from working, and, for most of his life, a colossal drinker, which he would not like to be any more. HIs story is at the heart of Nights Below Station Street, but he's surrounded by family and friends who seem equally frustrated at how hard it is not to be who they are, all described with the warm but unsentimental humor that makes it easy to understand why Richards's many novels about the Miramichi region of New Brunswick have made him a major figure in Canada, even though few readers south of the border have been lucky enough to discover him.