Suburban guerrillas

by Joseph Freda

We all know this town, the twinkling lights, the village green, the lawn-mower parade, the gazebo, the Good Humor truck....But do we really? In his funny, graceful, and keen first novel, Joseph Freda takes us into the town of Hurley, New Hampshire, and shows us what we didn't know about this town. In episodic chapters ("The Summer of Driving Naked," "Seduction of the Good Humor Man," "King of the Straight and Narrow") we are introduced to the people of Hurley, and we come to know them well: their marriages, their children, their secret betrayals and devotions. At the center of the novel is Ray Vann, struggling to keep his footing in the eddies and crosscurrents of marriage, a little in awe of the sudden unsignaled breaks and alliances taking place around him. Summoning suburban domestic life from its pleasures to its darker side, from infidelity to condominiums, Freda's level gaze yields a rich and effulgent portrait of a town and its inhabitants.