G.K. Wuori has spent the past few years penning short stories set in the fictional border town of Quillifarkeag, Maine, a community of intellects, craftsmen, and outright weirdoes. Following the release of the short-story anthology Nude In Tub, Wuori expands his scope with An American Outrage, a full-length novel set in "Quilli" revolving around the police shooting of an eccentric local woman. The book centers on Canadian-born Ellen DeLay, who leaves her husband after he accidentally locks her in a toolbox for three days. She buys a cabin in the woods and makes money cleaning and dressing dead animals for hunters, who thrill to her habit of carving in the nude to save on laundry. But when a stray rifle shot of her own accidentally clips the pinky of a drunken tourist, misunderstandings and prejudices lead a policewoman and her three female deputies to riddle DeLay with bullets and toss her corpse around like a soiled rug. An American Outrage is narrated by Quilli carpenter Splotenbrun "Splotchy" Doll, whose promiscuous daughter Wilma was DeLay's best friend. Doll claims to be documenting the tremulous atmosphere that led to both the shooting and Wilma's plan for revenge. This is Wuori's plan, as well, to sculpt a narrative that captures the way reputation, rumor, and presumptions about the feminine ideal can portend tragedy. The author is on his game early, introducing oddball characters whose interaction serves as an exaggerated, darkly comic model for the dynamics of small-town living. But a sinking feeling develops when what starts as a sprawling mosaic begins to narrow, circling the singular incident of DeLay's demise, and as the narrator moves back and forth through time, returning to embellish moments that were already well described. Wuori apparently thinks there's more to the story than what could be gleaned from one of his incisive short pieces, but while he does make astute observations along the way to making a brassy, overarching one, the spacey dialogue and intentionally disjointed prose take more effort than an essentially one-note story deserves. For all the layers of detail about the crime of punishment, Wuori gets to the meat of the matter in the book's central image: DeLay nicks the most insignificant part of the community's most insignificant man, and pays for it by getting blasted into kitty litter. Everything else is just paperwork.