In Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work, a young girl is the only one to witness Franklin, the local loner, disappear into a frozen lake. But when she runs into her older brother's strapping best friend, she doesn't alert him — in fact, for a moment, she forgets Franklin entirely. It's this sort of unnerving, hazy human darkness that Jason Brown explores so well in these stories, all set around a small Maine town full of weary, complicated souls. Often Brown fixates of those just entering adulthood, an age when the twin forces of temptation and regret are most potent. A-