THIS TOWN SLEEPS BY DENNIS E. STAPLES
Dennis E. Staples’s debut novel, This Town Sleeps, takes readers on a suspenseful ride that explores the intricacies of life in a small town by way of its hidden stories. Blurring genre categories, the novel shifts between multiple voices belonging to past and present residents of Geshig, Minnesota; and poetic techniques such as repetition and line breaks which texturize these voices throughout the narrative. The residents of this town carry multiplicities like the language used to describe them. For example, “the dead marble eyes” of one character, which “glower like a spinning nickel,” leaves the reader spellbound in suspense.
The novel opens with the main character, Marion Lafournier, having already left Geshig to live and work in a nearby area—an attempt to escape the jaws of small-town life. However, he finds himself returning to the “town with no dreams” for its love, rumors, community, and deep-rooted history—one that stakes its claim on Marion through the spirit world and connects him to his Ojibwe ancestry.
With a keen sense of humor and lightness, mysteries begin to reveal themselves and converse with themes such as friendship and childhood, intergenerational struggle, sexuality, and toxic masculinity. In investigating these ideas, the novel poses a genuine question: what makes a small town “sleep” and not dream? Is it the lack of a true “spirit” and a “bootstrap-strong” pride that fails to acknowledge progress? Through a meticulous weaving of backstories and present-day scenes, Marion and other characters who grew up in Geshig must come to terms with what it means to both resist and appreciate the place that roots them.
This Town Sleeps unfolds like a dream as we travel through time and voice—and discusses the consequences of escaping or never leaving one’s hometown while reminding us that “it’s better to wake up than fall back asleep.”
—Review by Shalini Rana
