In Chris Fink's debut work of fiction, America's rural core is cracked open to reveal moments of stark beauty and cruelty. "Farmer's Almanac"--a new Midwestern Gothic--is an imaginary handbook for rural living, as timeless and essential as its namesake. But this is no American pastoral. Fink's vision is more Orwell than Rockwell. Not since "Winesburg, Ohio" has a book so thoroughly plumbed the Midwestern character. A despairing farmer milks a dead cow, a baseball phenom chooses between the diamond and the dairy barn, and in the back of the school bus, a young girl fights back against her tormentors. "Farmer's Almanac" reports the news from mythical Odette County, Wisconsin, where the milk prices keep falling, and the forecast is not good.
