Eastertown

by Max Crawford

In Max Crawford's Eastertown, one character describes the unnamed western plains community at the center of the novel : "It is a very small place. Sometimes you wonder whether it exists at all, it is so small." Crawford's poignant novel reminds us that there are tragic events so small, so specific to an individual that, like a tree falling in the forest with no one around, they seem inconsequential, but these events have real impact nonetheless. Shortly after the Second World War, Doc Bavender and his friends Llewellyn and Dorothea Rainborough have returned home to resume their lives and responsibilities at the local school, the school they themselves once attacked. Llewellyn is the school superintendent, and wife Dorothea coaches the school's drama productions. Doc Bavender teaches science, the field that ultimately leads this good man to question life itself. When Bavender's family is struck by a senseless accident, every person in the town in affected. Throughout the novel, personal