Another of the novelists to enter my elite circle of influences recently, Banks addressed the working-class lives of northern New England and upstate New York. He included also darkness, despair, and grit that feel real, rather than at a bit of distance. There’s a heft I found missing from some others, like Carolyn Chute’s Beans of Egypt, Maine or Ernest Hebert’s Darby Chronicles of New Hampshire, not that they aren’t informative.
The Sweet Hereafter is my favorite so far in that vein, though I should also mention The Darling, which shifts the action to Liberia and the focus to failed political activism.
With 21 volumes of fiction to his name, my TBR pile gets deeper.
He also has me recalling Richard Russo’s Empire Falls, which I had thought was his.
Jnana's Red Barn 