The End Of Vandalism

Every so often a debut novel appears-Donna Tartt's The Secret History is one that comes to mind-that simply stuns you with the elegance and beauty of its writing. In The End of Vandalism, Tom Drury reflects on the rather ordinary lives of a few residents of the fictional Midwestern town of Grafton: Dan Norman, the sheriff, whose biggest challenge on a given day might be to chaperon a high school dance; Tiny Darling, a two-bit crook who lectures on the dangers of drug abuse but otherwise can't seem to contribute a thing to society; and Tiny's wife, Louise, who leaves him to marry Dan, only to move into a trailer when Dan suffers from insomnia. While Vandalism is remarkable for its lack of action or plot-there's only one part of the book that could be considered truly dramatic-Drury's prose is gorgeously descriptive of the plainest of things, and quietly humorous about the quirky particulars of day-to-day conversation. Eleven chapters were serialized in the pages of The New Yorker last year, a reminder of the days when that magazine used to publish this kind of fiction on a regular basis. A+