The End of Vandalism

Sometimes all I want from a novel is people saying funny things to each other, and for those times, Drury's first novel is a tonic. He is a master of the deadpan, of the dry, offhand remark that builds funny out of character and circumstance. The characters of his invented Grouse County, Iowa—especially Sheriff Dan, Louise Darling, and Tiny Darling, the low-key love triangle at the heart of his story—face the conditions of their lives, and the limits of their own characters, with a shrugging, weary persistence, and to my mind it's all so hilarious that sometimes you want to cry.