The Line That Held Us by David Joy

 

I said I was going to keep an eye out for more by David Joy, and I did, and ... wow. This is a pretty short (~250 pages) novel, but it packs a punch. It's probably too hillbilly-rural to really be like chewing on a live wire, but it's close. Characters that are human and flawed but mostly (arguably including the main antagonist) doing the best they can given their natures and their situation/s. Sure, the instigating event leads to a situation that arguably could have been made ... better for everyone, but the thing about flawed humans is they make flawed decisions. Did Darl deserve what happened to him? Probably not, but he wasn't the only--or even the most--flawed human in the novel; things ... escalated. ("Things ... escalated" is a thing I want to remember, it seems like a core mantra for at least some of the novels I enjoy most.)