What Luck, This Life

The Columbia space shuttle and its contents rain down on the people of Kiser, Texas, in Kathryn Schwille’s imaginative debut novel set six weeks before the invasion of Iraq.

What Luck, This Life begins in the aftermath of the space shuttle’s break-up, as the people of Piney Woods watch their pastures swarm with searchers and reporters bluster at their doors. A shop owner defends herself against a sexual predator who is pushed to new boldness after he is disinvited to his family reunion. A closeted father facing a divorce that will leave his gifted boy adrift retrieves an astronaut’s remains. An engineer who dreams of orbiting earth joins a search for debris and instead uncovers an old neighbor’s buried longing.

, the novel’s unforgettable characters struggle with family upheaval and mortality’s grip and a luminous book emerges-filled with heartache, beauty and warmth.