The Little Lights of Town - (Carnegie Mellon University Press Fiction) by Jonathan Johnson (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Stories of resilience, belonging, and the quiet beauty of life on the edge of the wild.

In The Little Lights of Town, acclaimed poet and memoirist Jonathan Johnson turns to fiction, bringing to life the rugged landscapes and tightly knit communities of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Against the backdrop of Lake Superior's cold, untamed shores, his characters navigate love, loss, and the relentless pull of home.

From those who choose to stay despite the ever-present shadow of isolation to those searching for connection in a land where nature looms larger than life, these stories illuminate the quiet urgencies of human existence. With prose as lyrical as it is unflinching, Johnson visualizes a place where the past lingers in the streets, and where even in the darkest winters, little lights continue to shine.

Review Quotes

"The Little Lights of Town is a love letter to the North Woods--Marquette, Michigan, specifically--to people who choose to live in the cold, next to a lake notorious for holding on to its dead. The people who populate this book are not afraid to admit that suicide is always a possibility and therefore love, the land and each other, and thus choose to stay. I love this book for its quiet urgency, its determination to soldier on in the face of grief, its recognition that the Earth--so tenderly and beautifully rendered here--takes care of us all, in her own enduring way."-- "Pam Houston, Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country"

"Whether in prose or poetry, Johnathan Johnson is a writer of place. Places he has written about include Idaho, Scotland, and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Despite their differences, a similar ethos emerges that is fundamental to Johnson's singular voice and vision. The weather is severe, moody, maritime, challenging; the landscape rugged, wind-chiseled, stubbornly hanging on to its uncompromising gorgeous wildness. If there are streets, the past roams them in step with the living. Whether the tone is elegiac or vibrantly big-hearted--often it's both--the relationship with landscape elevates Johnson's narratives, as it does in his new book of stories, The Little Lights of Town. His characters are immersed in place, from without but, more importantly, from within. Their stories are told with Johnson's signature vitality and empathy. A poet in prose, he's honed his language to immerse the reader."-- "Stuart Dybek, author of The Start of Something: Selected Stories"

About the Author

Jonathan Johnson is a poet, author, and MFA professor at Eastern Washington University. His poems have been published widely in magazines and anthologies, appeared in Best American Poetry, and heard on NPR. His previous works include three books of poetry, Mastodon, 80% Complete, In the Land We Imagined Ourselves, and May Is an Island, as well as two memoirs and a play. He migrates between his hometown of Marquette, Michigan; the coastal Scottish Highlands; and the American Northwest.