Cops, Jungles, and Santa Claus

Book excerpt: Paradise or trap? In the novella "Canyon," set in the 1950s, the Hiller family lives in some of the most beautiful country in California, on the Upper Sacramento River near Mt. Shasta. The father, Frank, is an intelligent but frustrated man without enough education to escape a blue-collar railroad job. The mother, Connie, and the three children live in the shadow of his anger, just as their home town, Dunsmuir, lies in the shadow of the mountains. In the story "Sump," set a decade later, the oldest son, John, gets his chance to leave but it may already be too late. Fear has become a habit, and how can he hope to love any other place as much as he loves this one?