Lions by Bonnie Nadzam

Published by Grove/Black Cat on July 5, 2016

A jokester put a “living ghost town” sign on the highway, pointing to Lions, a small town in eastern Colorado. The sign attracts some tourists to the local diner, but as jokes go, this one is uncomfortably close to the truth. Lions is a place where big stories are told, where legends build, but in the end, there is only the bleak reality of entropy.

John Walker is a welder in Lions. His son, Gordon, has only one friend his age, a girl named Leigh who wants nothing more than to leave. Lions is a dying town of wind and dust that can no longer support the welding business that Gordon is destined to inherit. The people who haven’t left Lions are hanging on, but the town has no future. When Gordon disappears for several days, the town residents wonder if he’s gone for good. While he’s gone, something happens in Lions -- a place where nothing ever happens.

The novel might be seen as Gordon’s coming of age story. Will he stay in Lions, consigned to a dead-end fate, or will he make his way in the world? It could also be seen as Leigh’s coming of age story, her struggle with people who are determined to hold her back. Unlike Gordon, Leigh yearns for something new and different, but nearly everyone in her life tells her that “there’s nowhere to go,” that she’ll eventually get over her belief that life can be better than it is in Lions.

But Lions is also a story of death -- not just the death of a few characters (either before or during the unfolding story), but the death of a town. Each new death seems to inspire another resident to think about leaving Lions. But a few are determined to stay, because home is where roots are planted, even if the roots are desperate for water. Or because a choice, once made, must be honored. Or because death has already claimed the living. They are dead inside. Life in Lions has killed their aspirations and joy.

In the end, Lions is a book about people who think about their lives -- their pasts and futures and where they are right now. It is not a particularly dramatic book -- although it has moments of quiet drama -- but is filled with contemplative characters and elegant prose. The ending is ambiguous, but life often keeps us guessing about what will happen next.

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