<p><b>The <i>Columbia</i> space shuttle and its contents rain down on the people of Kiser Texas in Kathryn Schwille's imaginative debut novel set six weeks before the invasion of Iraq.</b></p><p><i>What Luck This Life</i> begins in the aftermath of the space shuttle's break-up as the people of Piney Woods watch their pastures swarm with searchers and reporters bluster at their doors. A shop owner defends herself against a sexual predator who is pushed to new boldness after he is disinvited to his family reunion. A closeted father facing a divorce that will leave his gifted boy adrift retrieves an astronaut's remains. An engineer who dreams of orbiting earth joins a search for debris and instead uncovers an old neighbor's buried longing.</p><p>In a chorus of voices spanning places and years <i>What Luck This Life</i> explores the <i>Columbia</i> disaster's surprising fallout for a town beset by the tensions of class race and missed opportunity. Evoking Sherwood Anderson's classic <i>Winesburg Ohio</i> and Elizabeth Strout's <i>Olive Kitteridge</i> the novel's unforgettable characters struggle with family upheaval and mortality's grip and a luminous book emerges—filled with heartache beauty and warmth.</p>
