Voices After Evelyn

Voices after Evelyn seeks not so much to dig up a cold case--the 1953 disappearance of La Crosse, Wisconsin, babysitter Evelyn Hartley-- as reopen its heart. A fugue of voices across time (cracked, offensive, profound) reverberating toward today, when the phantoms of socalled innocence and greatness grow scarier than anything that took Evelyn away. An unsolved crime that jaundiced the way a town saw itself and its relationship to the outside world is rendered into a polyphonic, farcical, yet accurate visitation to the 1950s Midwest, where banality and inspired caprice make for an odd mix of the hilarious and terrifying. "Rick Harsch is America's lost Midwest noir genius, an heir to the more lurid Faulkner, an ex-pat living in Slovenia, a master of dialogue. Voices after Evelyn is a fictional take on true crime, and its bloody heart in the real, still-unsolved 1953 disappearance of teenage Evelyn Hartley in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Through that victimization, Harsch makes us look at other victims, survivors too, and throughout the novel, a Greek-style chorus sings songs of rage and loss and puzzlement. Voices after Evelyn is taut and funny, smart and haunting, enraging and true."--Daniel A. Hoyt, author, Then We Saw the Flames