SEX OF THE MIDWEST

Ryle’s 12 intertwining narratives, linked sequentially over a period of months, take a mostly upbeat look at how lives have changed in one post-Covid-19 Indiana town.

Representing the many small towns that saw an economically revitalizing influx of newcomers during the Covid pandemic, fictional Lanier struggles to balance its long-term traditional values and the more liberal outlook of the newcomers it has welcomed. The book opens with a mysterious email sent to all Lanier residents with the subject line “Invitation To Participate: Sexual Practices in a Small Midwestern Town.” Weaving through the following stories, the survey acts as a touchstone to which characters react. In a relatively short book, Ryle richly delineates a lot of personalities, listing more than 65 in her cast of characters. Like many of them, the central five appear predictable at first until they evolve in ways unexpected to readers and themselves. Having refused to get vaccinated, grouchy former basketball coach Don Blankman was hospitalized with Covid and now needs a new lung. While publicly fulminating about sexual morality, he’s privately tortured about the long-term adulterous affair he’s carrying on and by his fear of death. When Don returns temporarily to the hospital, his wife, Joyce, enjoys her newfound independence, taking up painting and finding a new creative social circle. A member of that circle, 81-year-old Nancy, begins a romance with a retired doctor involved in downtown gentrification. Loretta Sawyer, an embittered government bureaucrat who doesn’t admit her loneliness, finds herself drawn to a hot dog vendor whose business she’s supposed to shut down because he doesn’t fit the town’s new “brand.” Loretta’s friend Rachel Barr, a self-effacing bartender, discovers a gift she can’t avoid: writing stories about her observations. Rachel’s and the author’s trenchant insights and affection for the characters, especially Lanier itself, abound. Comparisons to Olive Kitteridge are inevitable, but the tone and expansiveness of this novel-in-stories hark back to Spoon River Anthology (if not Chaucer).

Thoroughly refreshing: an astute portrait of contemporary small-town America that's genuinely fun to read.