Three men slog through days in a New England textile mill and while away the nights in a working-class town in Delaney's quietly lyrical first novel (after 1999's The Drowning and Other Stories
). Just 16, Dominic drops out of school to work at Chace Finishing, where Machado, who immigrated from the Azores islands in his middle age, and Carey, a lifer, also toil. It's 1978, and the mill isn't what it used to be; even in boom times the work was long and hard. In short chapters from alternating points of view, Delaney reveals Dominic's desire to prove himself to his bitter, wheelchair-bound father; Machado's resistance to his wife's wish to return to their former home; and Carey's hopes of becoming foreman and his obsession with the mill's softball team. The older workers' life frustrations are deflected onto rookies like Dominic and Parry, a local rich man's son; even as the boys adjust to the work (or, as in Parry's case, eventually quit), life itself pushes them, and the rest of the book's characters, to their limits. Delaney portrays the landscape and the milieu with impressionistic grace, but when it comes to plot, too often primitive tests of manhood (fighting, lifting 55-gallon drums of dye and scoring at ball games) substitute for more profound challenges. Yet Delaney's evocation of the quotidian is affecting, and his empathy is evident on every page of this somber and graceful book. (Jan.)
