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In a small insular and religious town, a stranger is found asleep in the church. The young person, of ambiguous gender and race, refuses to speak, and so is named ‘Pew�� after the place they were found.

That description hooked me enough to pick up Catherine Lacey’s Pew. As I began to read, I found to my delight that it also blends the influence of Carson McCullers and Jesse Ball with Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery�� and Ursula K Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas��.

This slim novel is sensitive and thoughtful, written in a simple, poetic but unfussy style. I enjoyed reading it quite a lot, as it follows Pew over the course of a week leading up to the town’s ‘Forgiveness Festival��. Pew’s refusal to speak allows the townspeople to open up in order to fill the void; one by one, they pour their stories out as Pew becomes almost a confessor. It is a terrific way to structure a novel.

As an homage, it is rather lovely and skilfully done. But by the end, I felt that it followed in the tradition of its predecessors a little too closely. Perhaps ironically, I wanted Pew to be its own unique self just a tiny bit more. 3.5 stars.