The Best People in the World

What might have been the stuff of boyish fantasies—an affair with a teacher, running away from home, living off the land—goes frighteningly awry in this unsettling but bleakly beautiful debut novel. It's 1972 in Paducah, Ky., and quiet 17-year-old Thomas Mahey falls into an intense affair with his 25-year-old history teacher, Alice Lowe. Independently, they both befriend Shiloh Tanager, a wily, good-hearted local anarchist, and the three hit the road for rural Vermont, determined to live "off the grid." No sooner does the trio settle into an abandoned house than things begin to unravel. Thomas is torn between loyalty to Shiloh and an all-consuming love for Alice, and riddled with guilt for wordlessly leaving his parents. Meanwhile, the homesteaders' efforts at growing food fail. When an unwelcome visitor from Shiloh's past appears, he brings to a head the increasingly desperate atmosphere of secrets and resentment that their idyll has become. Tussing skillfully crafts simultaneously visionary and demented characters (chapters following two men who investigate "miracles" for the Catholic Church punctuate the trio's story), and when an element of the supernatural infiltrates the narrative it seems normal for the deliberately off-kilter people who inhabit this odd but honest, appealing American story. (Feb.)