Twenty years ago, T. R. Pearson's A Short History of a Small Place was hailed as "an absolute stunner" (Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post) and its hero, young Louis Benfield, was dubbed "a youth not as wry as Holden Caulfield, but certainly as observant, and with a bigger, even sadder heart" (Fran Schumer, The New York Times).

Now, older but not necessarily wiser, Louis Benfield returns in Glad News of the Natural World. Having moved to New York City from his hometown of Neely, North Carolina, in order to get a sense of the larger world, Louis is a...