Sweet.

Dudes.

I am on such a tremendous tear right now. Three books into the new year and they’ve all been great. I feel like I’m on THE DRUG THAT IS CHARLIE SHEEN. First there was ROOM, then THE BAD GIRL, and now this.

THE SWEET HEREAFTER by Russell Banks is the story of a little town in upstate New York that suffers a huge tragedy when it’s sole school bus ferrying the town’s kids to school plunges into a quarry and a bunch of the children drown.

Before you get mad and hate me I’m not giving away the ending- this is the beginning- to a really good book about small town America and how folks handle shit when it’s thrown at ’em in big bunch’s like that.

Russell Banks tells his story from several different viewpoints including the slick-as-shit New York City lawyer trying to build a negligence lawsuit for some of the families whose kids died in the accident.

It sounds terribly depressing (even to me as I write this) but it’s an awesome book that, overall, leaves you feeling really good and really hopeful about people.

I loves me some Russell Banks.