In this startling debut collection of loosely linked stories, characters disappear only to resurface once again a few stories later. Among the central characters are Rhea, a girl whose mother abandoned her and her father when she was three and who grows to adulthood full of questions and contradictions; Jarvis, a boy whom Rhea loves but wants as a boyfriend only when he has to marry his pregnant girlfriend; and the Lalonde brothers, so different and yet so clearly formed by their shared circumstances. A strange eroticism pervades "They Secretly Pray for Rain." A subtle, mostly denied violence underlies "Very Little Blood," but it percolates to the surface in the terrible climax of "River Judith." The ancient aquifer flowing below the prairie pulses through the very marrow of the men's bones. Farming is not what they do, but what they are, and interference is fatal. In this small, tightly knit community, secrets are essential. The need to keep silent and to control terrifying emotions is at the same time necessary and ruinous, and the stories people tell hide as much as they reveal.