Timothy Schaffert has created his most memorable character yet in Essie,
an octogenarian obituary writer for her family's small town newspaper.
When a young country girl is reported to be missing, perhaps whisked
away by an itinerant aerial photographer, Essie stumbles onto the story
of her life. Or, it all could be simply a hoax, or a delusion, the child
and child-thief invented from the desperate imagination of a lonely,
lovelorn woman. Either way, the story of the girl reaches far and wide,
igniting controversy, attracting curiosity-seekers and cult worshippers
from all over the country to this dying rural town. And then it is
revealed that the long awaited final book of an infamous series of YA
gothic novels is being secretly printed on the newspaper's presses.
The Coffins of Little Hope tells a feisty, energetic story of
characters caught in the intricately woven webs of myth, legend and
deception even as Schaffert explores with his typical exquisite care and
sharp eye the fragility of childhood, the strength of family, the
powerful rumor mills of rural America, and the sometimes dramatic
effects of pop culture on the way we shape our world.
