The Building

Furnass #1

by Richard Snodgrass

The Building, the first book of the Furnass Towers Trilogy, is the story of the well-intentioned but ill-conceived attempt to construct a high-rise building in the middle of a stricken mill town. It is the story of a head-strong superintendent who pours concrete when he's told not to . . . of a rebar foreman whose insecurities make him dangerous to everyone around him . . . the story of an architect who hides the project's true cost so he can build a monument to himself . . . a young inspector totally out of his depth . . . a local developer content to wait and pick up the pieces when the dust settles . . . and it is the story of a young woman across the alley who dances each morning in her window as she takes her shower, who distracts one worker to the point of a fatal accident and provides sanctuary for another.

391 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 22, 2018

About the author

Richard Snodgrass is the critically acclaimed author of the “Books of Furnass” Series, an eleven-volume set of novels that explores the hopes, disappointments, relationships, and betrayals that make up life in a fictional Western Pennsylvania mill town and its surrounding farmlands from the time of the French and Indian War to modern day. The eleventh book in the series, Torn, will be released on September 17, 2025.

Snodgrass is also the author of There’s Something in the Back Yard, published in 1989 by Viking, and praised by Jack Stephens of the Washington Post Book World who wrote, “Observe this mysterious book and be changed.” Other works by Snodgrass include: An Uncommon Field: The Flight 93 Temporary Memorial, published in September of 2011 by Carnegie Mellon University Press, and Kitchen Things: An Album of Vintage Utensils and Farm Kitchen Recipes, published in 2013 by Skyhorse and named one of the year’s “best books to get you thinking about food” by the Associated Press.

Snodgrass’s short stories and essays have appeared in the New England Review/Bread Loaf Quarterly, South Dakota Review, California Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, and elsewhere. He is also a master photographer who has been artist-in-residence at LightWorks (University of Syracuse) and at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos, New Mexico. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Richard Snodgrass lives in Pittsburgh, PA, with his wife Marty and two indomitable female tuxedo cats, raised from feral kittens, named Frankie and Becca.

Reviews

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first in the Furnass Towers series, The Building tells the story of an ill-conceived and ill-executed attempt to build a high-rise apartment building in an ailing mill town in Pennsylvania. That in a nutshell is the plot, but it becomes an increasingly compelling one as things start to go wrong on the construction site and conflicts arise between the personnel involved in the project, from the architect to the lowliest building hand. Tensions continue to ratchet up and the book becomes more and more of a page-turner. All the characters gradually emerge as fully-rounded and complex personalities until the reader feels immersed in their lives and the unfolding action. The time and place are vividly evoked and I began to feel as though I had actually visited the town. I’m surprised that so little attention has been paid to the book, or indeed the series, on Amazon and Goodreads, for it surely merits a wide readership. Highly recommended.