Englehardt draws out surprising details in this tragically typical narrative. PHOTO BY KATHARINE TOOMBS
Because we live in the United States, the psychological dimensions of John Englehardt’s debut novel, Bloomland, are familiar.
In a small Arkansas college town, a weirdo white guy with psychological issues steals his roommate’s semiautomatic rifle, walks into the school library, and murders 12 people.
In high-quality, almost incantatory literary prose, Englehardt’s narrator examines the lives of the killer, the victims, the bereaved, the town, and himself in an attempt to find honest answers to frustratingly routine questions: Why did this shooting happen? Who is responsible? And what happens next?
