The Falling Boy

His quiet insights into the lives of people living on the western frontier distinguished Long's prize-winning short-story collection, Blue Spruce. In this emotionally resonant first novel, he captures the texture of a generally uneventful life and creates a keenly observed and poignantly accurate portrait of the human condition. Mark Singer is a well-meaning but fallible young man who finds intimacy, joy and pain in his relationship with two of the four Stavros sisters of Sperry, Mont. Raised by his grandmother after his mother ran off and his wastrel father died in a fracas outside a nightclub, Mark craves the embrace of a large family. When, at age 22, he weds Olivia, third daughter of Nick Stavros, who runs the Vagabond Cafe, he is still unsure of himself and hopes he is mature enough for marriage. Olivia is withdrawn and moody, however, and a decade later, with two children, a mortgaged house and an only marginally lucrative job as a construction worker, Mark has inchoate feelings of emptiness and restlessness as he reflects on his ""paltry life."" When the eldest Stavros sister, Linny, returns to town, she ignites a spark in Mark that becomes unquenchable passion. Their affair and its inevitable consequences plunge Mark and the Stavros family into chaos. Long renders the essence of Mark's mundane working days, and the excitement of his feverish trysts with Linny in lean prose that strikes each note true and clear. In addition to the thrilling tension of adultery, the narrative examines the subtle frictions and affections of sibling and father-daughter relationships, the disequilibriums and the harmonies of marriage, the camaraderie and petty irritations of men who work together. At the end, Mark understands what it is to lose one's footing and fall, and how one can climb back to safety and love. Unpretentiously profound, this is a memorable novel. (June)