Candy Wilson has forgotten to buy the paprika. Turner Davis needs to get his zinnias in. Della Dorner told her mother she was going to the Galaxy Swirl, but that's not where she's really headed on her new Schwinn five-speed. Float Up, Sing Down is the story of a single day. But in that day, how much teeming life! The residents of this rural town have their routines, their preferences, their joys, grudges, and regrets. Gossip is paramount. Lives are entwined. Retired sheriffs climb corn bins and muse on lost love, French teachers throw firecrackers out of barn windows, and teenagers borrow motorcycles to ride the back roads.
Lyrical, reflective ... If the constant fullness of these internal monologues can sometimes feel slightly monotonous, it doesn’t detract from the gratification of reading ... In the process of learning what makes each character tick, what feels at first like a loosely linked collection grows revelatory, unearthing an ecology of elusive connection and meaning.
Questions of fate and identity meander through these stories ... Without even the slightest sentimentality about it, the book provides an elegy for a lost generation.
The portrayal of a real community lends a nostalgic feel to the vignettes ... If Float Up, Sing Down is spread thinner than Zorrie, it continues Mr. Hunt’s neat trick of conveying human complexity through the simplest of scenarios.
