In the tradition of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio or Eudora Welty’s The Golden Apples, Dennis Vannatta’s novel Around Centralia Square depicts the social and spiritual life of a small town, though Vannatta paints a larger canvas. He offers readers a host of small-town characters, each with their own rich histories. They include people like Gary Frazier, the hapless but devoted science teacher mourning his dead child; Russ Forte, the local bigot and no-good, with a surprising affection for his lost dog; Nicole Johnson, the harried mother fantasizing about witchcraft during the football game; Eunice Buddy, the old woman who takes her "senior citizen discount" by shoplifting; the staff at Wiley’s Café, so worried about their friend Jan’s struggle with cancer; and Reverend Holcombe, who has been pastor at First Baptist so long it seems like he will never leave. But these inter-linked stories make clear that this place, Centralia, and this time, 1999 to 2000, could not exist without countless other places and times. Wim Holland started the furniture store only after his history tracing back to South Africa and the Boer War. Vincent Kline opened his hometown gift shop only after years in New York. John Reinhardt loves meeting with his fellow members of the Elks lodge, but he can’t forget that day in '56, when Don Larsen pitched his perfect game.
In Around Centralia Square, an entire little world is evoked with wonderful inventiveness and attention to telling and evocative detail. As the sun rises and the old millennium marches toward its end, the little town of Centralia emerges in all its singularity, simultaneously resembling more and more all the other little towns in the American heartland and in the heart of the world.
