Lake City

Kohnstamm’s fiction debut (after memoir Do Travel Writers Go to Hell?) is all at once hip, intrepid, and philosophical. Lane Beuche worked his way out of the low-income status of his childhood in Seattle’s bleak Lake City neighborhood to attend college, backsliding once and almost ending his academic endeavors. But then he meets Mia, who has trust fund wealth, and soon after, Lane and Mia are married and living in New York City as Lane pursues his PhD at Columbia. His downward spiral begins when the marriage hits a rough spot after the 9/11 attacks, and Lane returns to his mother’s home in Lake City. He obsesses about returning to his wife and life in New York while he tries to endure the emotionally draining environment of his youth that can be “like a soft choke by someone with bad taste and sweaty palms.” Adrift, he makes an ill-advised decision to help a rich, type-A personality woman and her spouse adopt a baby from a drug-addicted local, and the simultaneously impulsive and irresolute Lane becomes entangled in the drama. Kohnstamm’s fresh voice has a millennial groove, the story is engaging and gritty, and there’s an impressive scrutiny of personal and societal ethics. (Jan.)