HAWTHORNE BOOKS | AUTHOR PHOTO BY DAVE JANETTA
Nebraska-based author Poe Ballantine has given his new novel the subtitle The Great American Loony Bin, Horseplaying, & Record-Collecting Novel, but despite the book’s relative slimness, that doesn’t cover nearly all of it. Whirlaway, published by Portland’s Hawthorne Books, also manages to pack in multiple ghosts, a few serial killers, a smuggler’s tunnel, a glorious all-day fiesta at a migrant camp, and a telepathic dog named Carlito who prefers to be called “Sweets.” Despite its kaleidoscopic reach, it becomes a simple story about careful friendships and damaged families, tinctured with truth and Ballantine’s enthrallingly virtuosic prose.