Commonality

Small towns are iconic, integral to our nation's collective identity. They represent the very best of what to many Americans is the ideal life, defined bylaw-abiding citizens and strong communities, suffused with a personal warmth that enhances work, recreation and civic responsibilities. But when tragedy and conflict occur and these values are violated, even the most stable of small towns can find itself in an identity crisis that calls into question the very character of the community itself.

In part one of "Lucy's Large Lunch" by author Gordon Watt, a small town finds itself reeling when a local teenager is dragged from her home, raped, and murdered. The palpable outrage and shock are revisited up and down the age levels and are seen most tellingly in the rough-talking baseball kids (the eventual old men on the bench, if they believe in their town) as the speculations keep coming. The killer could be anyone, from the good old boys who sit on the bench outside Lucy's, sipping coffee, to the idealistic college students home for the summer, to the charmingly crude teenagers who spend their time on the dusty ball diamond, to the locally born and raised police chief and his friends. A few clues eventually surface, but solving this murder takes time. The days drag on, the questions and confusion abound, and the town begins to question itself as an entire community struggles to find togetherness, commonality, and a way to rise to the ideal of a better life for all.

In part two of "Lucy's Large Lunch," one year later in this same small town, sixteen-year-old Mike stabs his oldest brother Ray in an act of rage against a lifetime of oppression. While Ray teeters on the edge of life, insisting that Mike be prosecuted, Mike responds by insisting that Ray be charged with abuse. Freshly stunned, this same small community struggles anew to comprehend the roots of the violence threatening to shatter their town. All the while, they inch ever closer to an understanding of what it means to be human and to live in community with others.

Gordon comments, "The story I tell is as much about how the community responds as it is about Mike, and it offers a study in how the different age levels react to this act of desperate violence." He adds, "With a wide range of characters, and with plenty of humor throughout, 'Lucy's Large Lunch' is a story of community anywhere. Which, after all, is where we all live."