Tornado Weather

May 29, 2017
Kennedy’s heartbreaking debut novel captures the warped and isolated landscape of today’s American Midwest. Narrated by myriad characters whose voices swirl into a vortex that becomes, literally, a tornado, the story hangs ever so loosely on the disappearance of Daisy Gonzalez, daughter of a local schoolteacher in Colliersville, Ind., who was disabled in the hit-and-run that killed her mother three years prior. The owner of a dairy farm nearby has replaced all his workers with Mexican laborers, and tensions in the community run high. Colliersville has only one policeman, but many others in town feel responsible for the missing girl, and a search ensues. Hector, Daisy’s devastated father, cannot teach, nor eat, nor fathom what has happened. Fikus, the bus driver who left Daisy alone on the street the day she disappeared, convinces his old workmate, Irv, a hermit roadkill collector, to help him search for clues. Wally, adult child of the dairy farm owner who works at the local hair salon and wants to be called Willa, has an opinion about Daisy’s disappearance, but Trevor, who talks to animals, knows better. Though this story is hung on a child gone missing and a tornado on the horizon, the focus is the flawed folks who people it. The author is a fine mimic, inhabiting her characters in such a way that we know them from the inside out. The denouement, coming as it does from a surreal, bird’s-eye view, is very strange indeed. Kennedy’s superb chorus leaves an indelible impression.

June 1, 2017
Class, race, and natural disaster collide in this first novel.Five-year-old Daisy Gonzalez has gone missing. Her disappearance is a crisis for her father and a problem for the police. For just about everyone else in Colliersville, Indiana, it's a symbol of the town's decline. Although the question of what has happened to Daisy serves as a catalyst and a unifying conundrum, this is not a typical mystery novel. Instead, it reads more like a collection of connected short stories. Gordy is a journalist who's gone undercover to investigate conditions at the Yoder Dairy. That business itself is a flashpoint for conflicts both public and private. Helman Yoder's decision to expand operations and replace local workers with Mexican migrants has aggravated racial tensions in the community and given Colliersville's militia movement--all two members--a renewed sense of purpose. It's also exacerbated Helman's wife Birdy's reliance on prescription painkillers. Renee Seaver doesn't necessarily have anything against Mexicans, but she's happy to use her father's antipathy if it will get Mr. Gonzalez--her math teacher, her history teacher, and Daisy's father--off her back. Benny Bradenton is Renee's connection to the other side of Colliersville, where the (relatively) rich kids live. And then there's the storm....As Kennedy takes readers from the trailer park to the McMansions, from the laundromat to the psych ward, she brings this flailing Midwestern town to life. She creates a rich chorus of distinct and authentic voices. The sheer volume of characters becomes overwhelming, though, and not every character is fully developed. Wally--or Willa--Yoder is particularly problematic. It would not be surprising if the people of Colliersville had difficulty adjusting to a transitioning transgender teen, but it feels like the novel itself doesn't know quite what to do with this kid, and this confusion comes off as skepticism. A larger difficulty is that Daisy's disappearance starts to feel inessential and inconsequential--a self-indulgent hook rather than a necessary part of the narrative. The final chapter only reinforces this sense. A cacophonous debut.

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June 1, 2017
Kennedy's moving debut novel, about people living in small-town Indiana, reads like interconnected short stories as each chapter is told from a different character's perspective. The loose plot concerns a young girl who has gone missing, but the bigger story is of the town itself: a place where political issues play out on a personal stage. Longtime residents have lost their jobs to immigrants who are paid a pittance and forced to live in squalor. A teenage boy is in the midst of transitioning, while a local pastor shows films like Praying the Gay Away. Most characters are just trying to find their place in the world. Kennedy's writing is very good, and her dialogue rings true and keeps the storiesmoving. Though a pat ending loses some of the nuance found in the rest of the book, Kennedy has painted a distinctive picture of a Midwestern blue-collar town that will remind readers of Richard Russo's work. Fans of Did You Ever Have a Family (2015), by Bill Clegg, will also find much to admire.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)