Duck Island

ISBN: 9781554202034 (trade paperback)
Physical Description: print 200 pages ; 22 cm
Publisher: Vancouver, BC : New Star Books, [2023]
Copyright: &copy;2023

Summary: Duck Island updates the story of the prodigal son, returning, in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, to the midwestern American town where he grew up. In Steve Weiner's retelling, the father is no longer alive, and his ghost is unforgiving. After failing to rekindle an old flame, Cal Bedrick meets a nice young woman from a good family who falls hard for him. Their whirlwind courtship and precipitous marriage fill all around them with doubt. Cal and Frannie's ill-starred romance is set in a fictionalized Wausau, Wisconsin, struggling with the fallout of the recently concluded war. Reminiscent of a David Lynch film, Duck Island vividly contrasts a society whose liberal surface struggles to conceal a deeply troubled psyche.