This Town Sleeps

"When teenagers make their grandiose plans of leaving, they say There’s nothing to do here. They don’t realize there are plenty of houses to burn down, railroad links to dig up, and roads to dismantle until the sun can once again shine on a patch of dirt thought lost to history. There is plenty to do in Geshig if the aim is to destroy Geshig" (162)

Upon finishing Dennis E. Staples’ debut novel This Town Sleeps, I was reminded of multiple kindred books. The one that I was most surprised to be reminded of was the picture book Old Rock (is Not Boring) by Deb Pilutti, which I heard my friend read aloud just yesterday. In Old Rock (is Not Boring), the Old Rock is questioned by its friends the beetle, hummingbird, and pine tree about how it must be bored, always sitting in the same place, and replies with reminisces of an existence full of motion, change, and intensity. This Town Sleeps is a similar story. While layered with many additional layers of complexity, from main character Marion’s affair with a closeted man in the neighboring reservation town to his evolving relationships to his family, community, spirituality, and sense of self, the novel is also a reminder that just because a place appears to be quiet, still, or sleepy, this doesn’t translate to a lack of history, intensity, or transformation.

The other books This Town Sleeps brought to my mind were Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and Leann Howe’s Shell Shaker. While written in a simpler style, and with the slightly mechanical feel of a new novelist taking pains to ensure that each narrative thread leads appropriately to the next and the book “works” correctly, This Town Sleeps is also a tale of uncovering and processing family lore in an effort to move forward as a new iteration and generation. Unlike the epic quality of Howe’s and Solomon’s works, though, This Town Sleeps feels soft and modern, cut through with dating apps and a millennial sense of figuring out how to define one’s self even as the weight of a heavy past, all the societal expectations of the present, and the foggy, dazzling possibilities of the future, swirl through even the sleepiest of towns.

Subjects this book includes which some readers may be sensitive to: Alcoholism, murder, incarceration, abandonment, assault.