Set in a coal rich valley of West Virginia in 1912, [The Scapegoat] teems with Italian miners, British bosses, downriver rednecks, Philadelphia-bred wives, Vassar-educated daughters, imported strike-breakers, even a learned Orthodox Jew or two. No one claims kin; no one makes friends. Lacey Creek is a place where people view each other with suspicion, keep their motives to themselves, and eventually take out their frustrations on the only real stranger in their midst.

With seemingly effortless skill Mary Lee Settle introduces us to the members of this microcosm during the course of a day in early June, the last day of a miners' strike. Emotions are running high, though for various reasons: the valley's old family feels undone by its recent loss of wealth; the immigrants feel undone by the harsh land which should have been golden; the men feel undone by the women, and the women by their...