One foggy morning, an email appears in inboxes across the small town of Lanier, Indiana, population 12,234. “Invitation to Participate: Sexual Practices in a Small Midwestern Town,” the subject line reads.
A link leads to an extensive survey, but why has Lanier been chosen? And by whom?
Don Blankman, legendary basketball coach, believes the email and the epidemic of STDs at the junior high are both part of the moral decline of the town. He’s got an oxygen tank and a bum lung from his encounter with Covid, but that’s not going to keep him from taking action. Loretta, slowly freed from her grief over her mother’s death, engages in a health department vendetta agains the hot dog man that slides into a hopeful and strange relationship even the survey might not have a spot for. As for Rachel, the bartender at the Main Street Saloon, the email stokes the flames of the mid-life crisis she’s been creeping up on in her post-Covid life, as well as her worries about her gay daughter’s place in the town. Street by street and house by house, the email opens up the secret (and not-so-secret) lives of one small town, and reveals the surprising complexity of life (and sex) in the Midwest.
