Spoon River Anthology

The first serious work of psychological naturalism, this artful indictment of small-town hypocrisy influenced Theodore Dreiser, William Faulkner, and other luminaries.
The characters lived and died in the second half of the nineteenth century, and as they molder in their earthen tombs, they spill forth their secrets to the living.  Their revelations are not quaint and antiquated: the Spoon River dead speak for all of us, and their secrets are the hidden things that prick at the hearts of each of us.