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Throughout this work, the titular character chooses not to speak, for the most part, and I agree with that decision: what is there to say to what’s said to them. Silence is inimical to many people and the people of the town, not surprisingly, fill the void with their worries, their hopes, their prejudices, and their own stories. In having a main character not speak, there’s the danger of making that character flat, but Pew’s thoughts are rich and worthy of contemplation.

I didn’t fully appreciate this novel until, at Cecily’s recommendation, I read Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,� which I did immediately after finishing Pew. (The story’s only four pages long and can be found online.) Not only is the name of the neighboring county of the novel an anagram of Omelas, the story’s concluding paragraph is used as an epigraph for Pew. The novel holds at least three references (one, a direct quote spoken by a minor character) taken straight from the story. I now understand Pew’s thoughts about and connection to the “fields� (as in grass), something I’d found perplexing.

I then wondered if the novel stands on its own without one knowing the Le Guin story, but that’s a different debate, I suppose. Any lack of previous comprehension is my own failing and perhaps you’ll understand it better than I did without reading the Le Guin afterward. It was rewarding to do so, though, and bumped my satisfaction up a star. Now that I have that fuller understanding, I won’t explain it here: it’s best you come to it on your own. Thank you, Cecily. And thank you to my dear friend Cathrine, who gifted me this: I likely wouldn't have read it otherwise.