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 modern-day Candide, looking for love and experience in all the wrong places. However, when tragedy strikes, he finds the maturity needed to be more than man enough for the job.