Gerlach is an everyman’s tale about coming of age. It is the author’s recollections from Gerlach, Nevada, “a rumpled, unmade bed of a town,” and the neighboring U.S. Gypsum mining town of Empire, in the early 1950s. While our country was captivated by the headlines of the Korean War, the McCarthy hearings, and the attempt to assassinate Harry Truman, Gerlach and Empire existed in an isolated world unto themselves. No phones, no newspapers, uncertain radio reception, and only one barely passable gravel-rutted road, 66 treacherous miles to the nearest...