To Be Sung Underwater / Tom McNeal 436 p.

A funny title for a novel set almost entirely in Nebraska. The premise is familiar - what if I had married that other guy? - but McNeal freshens it up and makes it almost authentic. Judith has creature comforts, a nice-looking husband and child, and a job editing TV dramas. As mid-life looms, she becomes preoccupied with a man she left behind in Nebraska to head off for Stanford. She becomes fixated to the point of renting a storage locker and constructing a sort of shrine to their romance, complete with the original bed and quilts on which they first, you know, kissed. This is just weird enough to make me like the character (and the author), but ultimately stories like this are doomed from the beginning: they either end sappily or tragically. A very fast, absorbing read, and the Upper Midwest landscape is rendered beautifully, by an author who has clear affection for that country.