["Town Burning"] gives new life to an old theme: the native's return, and reinforces [Thomas Williams's] unusual status as an elegist of small-town America….

With a perspective that is both dour and sympathetic, Mr. Williams sketches [protagonist] Cotter's circle of friends and enemies…. The centerpiece of the novel is its protagonist's precarious relationship with his mother, father and brother, a beautifully stated arrangement of inhibited love and subtly shaded hostility. A forest fire simplifies these compacts and acts as a crucible for new alignments. Symbolically, the novel begins and ends in a graveyard, which frames the novelist's regard for all there is in life.