By Ed Davis

For the Sunday Gazette-Mail

"Blood Clay." By Valerie Nieman. Press 53. 196 pages. $17.95. Paperback.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Valerie Nieman's third novel, "Blood Clay," is the deeply moving, elegantly constructed story of what happens when extraordinary violence happens to ordinary people; however, the story is about much more than violence.

Set in the small-town world of Saul County, N.C., it encompasses a great deal of history, private and public, as we come to know many of the denizens of Taberville and the surrounding region.

Tracey Gaines and Dave Fordham are single teachers at the A.O. Miller Alternative School. Living across the road is Orenna Sipes, a black single mother raising her two daughters. Artis Pennell, whose farm abuts Tracey's, is, like her, a divorced newcomer; but, unlike her, he has custody of a teenage son. Through the fates of these interwoven characters, Nieman works out the timeless theme who am I and where do I belong?

Events are set in motion early on when Tracey witnesses a tragedy involving a child. Her involvement -- what she did and didn't do -- not only disturbs her conscience but interferes with her ability to assimilate into a community worlds away from her urban Ohio and Pennsylvania. While the tragedy sets Tracey and her two neighbors on a collision course, Neiman wisely takes her time getting there. This is not a breathless blockbuster but a fascinating portrait of real people in anguished yet believable circumstances to which every reader can relate.

Setting is a character here. We're also taken down country roads, into tobacco fields, inside the alternative school, and in the process we're driven deep into Carolina soil.

Dave translates the region's history to the Northern outsider, Tracey, who in turn, helps Dave face his own secret tragedy: what happened while he taught in Baltimore to make him forever afraid of his own students.

A community college teacher of more than 30 years, I found Nieman's handling of the school scenes one of the novel's greatest strengths. The author nails just what it is like to face wounded students full of rage, with painfully low self-esteem who can pick apart a teacher without sufficient armor. Nieman can be completely trusted to surprise and satisfy the high emotional stakes she raises without resorting to cheap tricks or gratuitous violence. She keeps things real. In this character-driven novel, there are no stereotypes.

Not only her nuanced plot, setting and characters but also Nieman's poetic language brings her world to life. She paints the setting with precise, laser-cut visuals. Nieman's journalistic background shows in her tight economy of construction.

She offers a near-sociological view of this world, involves the reader deeply with several characters and provides true, aching insights about identity, both personal and cultural, and she does so in fewer than 200 pages. Not a word, image or event is wasted.

Nieman is a graduate of West Virginia University. Her first collection of short stories, "Fidelities," was published by West Virginia University Press.

Ed Davis, of Yellow Springs, Ohio, can be emailed at Edavis...@sbcglobal.net.