DOWNTOWN OWL

With the same cynical edge and cheeky pop-culture references that characterize his music writing, Chuck Klosterman portrays the unpretentious but still dark impulses of a rural community in North Dakota. Here, during Reagan's first term, the '70s became the '80s with little fanfare. Philip Baker Hall's voice, wrought with deadpan drollness, is the perfect vehicle for Klosterman's prose—smirking but never sanctimonious. Lily Rabe gives a similarly expert narration as the town's most recent arrival, Julia Rabia, a schoolteacher who, as the only single woman under 40 in the small community, soon finds out that there’s no such thing as one's "own business." Klosterman himself—a North Dakota native—makes a cameo as the coffee-swilling 72-year-old Horace Jones. J.S.H. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2008]