Cargill Falls — William Lychack

Fiction. Poetry. There is good reason why William Lychack's writing has been called Precise, exhilarating, sometimes wonderfully funny and always beautiful (Margot Livesey). In prose you can practically feel moving in your hands, CARGILL FALLS takes you through a series of unforgettable scenes that coalesce into an extended meditation on the meanings we give—or fail to give—certain moments in our lives. The story begins when an adult William Lychack, hearing of the suicide of a childhood friend, sets out to make peace with a single, long-departed winter's day when the two boys find a gun in the woods. Taking place over the course of just a few hours, this simple existential fact gathers totemic force as it travels backwards and forwards in time through Lychack's consciousness and opens onto the unfinished business in the lives of the boys, their friends, parents, teachers, and even the family dog. CARGILL FALLS is a moving conversation with the past that transports us into the mysteries of love and longing and, finally, life itself. Brimming with generosity and wisdom, this is a novel that reveals a writer at the top of his form.