What We Don't Talk About

James Janko is the author of Buffalo Boy and Geronimo and The Clubhouse Thief. His short stories have been published in The Sun, Massachusetts Review, and Eureka Literary Magazine, among others.

"Reading What We Don't Talk About is like looking inside a snow globe, and seeing a country town in America's heartland at Christmastime. You enter that town, stay, and know its people, and learn their ways. And what happens when the sun goes down. James Janko's miraculous writing connects us readers to those people in Orville, and all of us to all others. Every good thing we do, and every bad, affects the whole world."-Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior and Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book "An enticing work of fiction. . . . The author's power of language will magnetize the reader throughout."-David Steinberg, Albuquerque Journal "A deftly crafted novel by an author with a genuine flair for revealing the dramatic in the mundane. With a special appeal to readers with an interest in small town based race relations historical fiction, What We Don't Talk About is one of those thought-provoking works of literary fiction that will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after the book has been finished and set back upon the shelf."-Midwest Book Review "Janko paints a picture of what living in this place and time really feels like. The story is engaging, sometimes entertaining, and other times provocative. . . . A well-written, well-structured novel worth the read."-Windy City Reviews