The Poison Flood

This affecting novel from Farmer (The Pallbearer) combines an unconventional lead with a sobering portrayal of an environmental disaster’s impact on a small community. Though Hollis Bragg is a gifted songwriter, paid for writing lyrics for a popular singing group without attribution, his self-esteem is diminished by the hunchback he’s had most of his life, which has made him an object of derision. Environmental protests in his hometown of Coopersville, W.Va., which has been economically depressed since the closing of the local coal mines a few years earlier, prompt him to launch a new creative project, a concept album featuring songs “performed by a sick minstrel... who travels a wasteland version of America.” He puts that endeavor on hold after a leak from a chemical tank pollutes the area’s water, driving the residents to extreme measures to survive. Bragg gets involved in a murder related to the crisis, but the crime subplot is secondary to the lead’s struggles to come to terms with his past and himself. Farmer is especially good at making the despair of Coopersville palpable. Readers who like their fiction to have a social conscience will want to take a look. Agent: Noah Ballard, Curtis Brown. (May)