2006 Morning News Tournament of Books Nominee

Garner, New Hampshire is a town delineated by its Puritan ethics and its "Live Free or Die" mentality. In 1925, Garner's economic prospects are in decline and a group of young, wealthy New Yorkers descend on Frances Giddens's family farm for summer leisure. As Frances, a spirited, elusive girl born at the dawn of the twentieth century, is drawn to the romance the newcomers represent, darker forces are unleashed. When her body is found in rain-swollen Blood Brook, this deeply private community begins to unravel. As the story unfolds, Allio's beautiful, atmospheric prose reveals the town's hidden history and the fierce longings locked in the hearts of its citizens.

"With his ears made of envelopes,' postman Willard Heald hears the secret intimacies of the residents of Garner, N.H., the setting of this exceptional debut. He composes intricate histories of his small town — time lines, lists, aphorisms, ordinances, predictions and conversations — which form the skeleton of Allio's lyrical evocation of country life as its adherence to the past smothers its present. In a novel full of voices, Heald's rings the loudest: 'For some of our native folk, to meet the modern age was a difficult task. It was I who came upon young Frances, face up in Blood Brook and floating.' This discovery occurs at the end of summer 1925, during Garner's transition from a prosperous farming town to a decaying vacation destination for a group of wealthy urbanites, and the death of nymphlike Frances only hastens the metamorphosis. Allio's finely wrought writing — Frances has 'a laugh of leaves,' while Heald's wife muses that 'the evening was what one married for' — just barely overshadows a narrative that turns suspenseful in its final third. Four main characters nurse hearts as brittle as autumn's foliage, and their hurts lead them to places as frightening as dark forests and as shocking as the cool water of a stream. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"A shockingly beautiful work....Through Allio's stunning prose, the tension of this situation is tangible and thrilling...an alluring and unforgettable novel." Booklist

"A masterly, multi-voiced, mood-altering mystery." The Believer

"[A] wonderful first novel....Allio creates a series of abrupt, often opaque, always oblique snapshots, an aphoristic approach that offers poetic snippets and lovely lyrical passages about landscape, people, the passing of time, the weather." Providence Journal

"An elegant, luminous, moving work of lyric prose. Every page shimmers." Carole Maso

"Fiercely imagined, alive with incandescent imagery, Kirstin Allio's Garner is a memorable debut." John Burnham Schwartz

"Nathaniel Hawthorne knew all about what happens when an individual's obligations to history and community meet a repressed passion. In Kirstin Allio's strange, startling and beautifully written first novel, Hawthorne may have found a worthy 21st century heir to his dark, evocative fable-making about that most American of locations, New England." Rebecca Brown

"Allio's writing...tends to be elliptical as much as straightforward — much of it is even set parenthetically — and often as not she has her characters speak in metaphor." Chicago Tribune

"An elegant, luminous, moving work of lyric prose. Every page shimmers."-Carole Maso <P>"Fiercely imagined, alive with incandescent imagery, Kirstin Allio's "Garner" is a memorable debut."-John Burnham Schwartz <P>Landlocked, sail-shaped Garner, New Hampshire, is a town delineated by its Puritan ethics and its "Live Free or Die" mentality. Like the forbidding landscape of Wharton's "Ethan Frome," this New England outpost keeps its secrets and shapes its inhabitants. Frances Giddens, a spirited, elusive girl born at the dawn of the twentieth century and now approaching womanhood, moves through the forests and rivers that mark Garner's borders as easily as she befriends its stoic residents. <P>In the summer of 1925, with Garner's economic prospects in decline, a group of wealthy New Yorkers descends on the Giddens farm for summer leisure. Even as Frances is drawn to the romance the newcomers represent, darker forces are unleashed. When her body is found in rain-swollen Blood Brook, this deeply private community begins to unravel. <P>"Garner" chronicles the mystery of Frances' sudden death and the demise of a picture-perfect New England town threatened by a new century. Allio's beautiful, atmospheric prose reveals the town's hidden history and the fierce longings locked in the hearts of its citizens. "Bounded by her trees was the new England," muses the postman and local historian. "It is said that if one had the gossamer soul of an angel and wings of an artist's weave, one might pass from Maine to Rhode Island, crown to green crown, and o'er New Hampshire . . . Tree to tree, one might travel . . ." But some may never leave. <P>Kirstin Allio has taught creative writing at BrownUniversity and holds degrees from Brown and New York University. Born in Maine, she lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her husband and sons. This is her first novel.

A former creative writing instructor at Brown University, Kirstin Allio holds degrees from both Brown and New York University. Born in Maine, she now lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with her husband and two children. Garner is her first novel.