Divisible by One

That's exactly what you'll find here -- and in large, heavy doses. This is an extremely well-crafted work -- I would recommend it on that aspect alone -- but don't enter into it looking for an uplifting read. There is indeed angst a-plenty in this story -- the thin volume belies its weight -- and from every side. I just finished reading it today, and I can't recall a character in it that was truly happy in their life. It's a testament to the power of Lyons' talent that I was able to work my way through it.Most readers might not expect a novel set in the American farmland to be so dark -- isn't this the heart of America? Believe me, there's plenty of darkness there. The story centers around two people -- one of them the narrator, Annie, whom we follow from girlhood into adulthood, through trials and tribulations with her parents, her relatives, and a marriage; the other her cousin, one Henry Starr, whom we see through a series of letters he writes to Annie over a period of several years.Henry is seen as an outcast by his relatives. He has abandoned his family and home after an emotional trauma -- he has discovered that Florence, the woman married to his father Amos, who has nurtured him through all of his memory, is not his real mother. The breakdown of this wall of secrecy comes in a rush of emotion, and Henry and Florence find themselves thrown together in a way not viewed in a very favorable light by those around them. Rumors fly, secrets are kept and told in quiet whispers, away from young ears. Much is thought but little is spoken.Annie is mystified by her cousin -- and his reputation, by word and by imagination. She pries what little information she can from her parents and others -- and what she actually gleans offers her very little substance. Most of what she learns of Henry comes from his letters. After his sudden departure, he begins writing to her -- tortuous missives that seem to issue from deep within his torn soul. His mood and psyche -- and, for that matter, those of Annie as well -- are captured in breathtakingly pure, raw fashion by Lyons. Many of his letters contain not so much sentences but short bursts of thought -- and a lot of what seem to be rhetorical questions, but they are questions that are eating Henry alive.Annie comes to feel closer and closer to Henry over the course of a few years of these one-way communications. He never stays in one place long enough to have a return address -- or, at least, he never offers one, preferring to conduct his quest in isolation. His quest? To find and meet his real mother. It takes him from one end of the country to the other and back again, through a series of misadventures, odd characters (the like of which I haven't seen since ON THE ROAD) and close shaves.While all of this is going on, Annie, at home, is going through some tough times of her own. Her husband falls ill and dies in her arms -- and Henry's letters, combined with her own pain and thoughts (as well