After last year's effort, I wasn't intending to keep a pace of reading a book every week in 2018. I knew I would keep reading, but was not going to keep the pressure on to keep up that pace.
Then, I picked up Wiley Cash's book.
You can see from the sticker on the cover that this book was highly acclaimed. And, the cover describes the book as if "Cormac McCarthy decided to rewrite Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird". I mean, how could you NOT read it after it was described that way?
This book isn't going to uplift you in any way. But, it will move you. The subject matter is difficult, but the writing is exceptional.
It begins with death by snake inside a radical southern church. Do I have your attention? Yeah. Then, it describes the rifts that often permeate small towns. Rifts in religious, rifts in families, rifts inside ourselves. And, while things end in a very final way, those rifts don't necessarily resolve in any sort of productive way. Sometimes you just get too damn tired to fight anymore.
The story bounces between narrators, the most compelling being a young boy subjected to absolute pain and horror. When his brother stumbles across something he should never have seen, the repercussions come swiftly. This younger brother is left to see it happen and feels powerless to stop it. Surrounding those young boys: a woman who saw this type of horror coming years before, a mother who sacrifices her family for a religious zealot and a couple of angry, grieving fathers. Their stories intertwine in powerful ways that will leave you aching for the characters throughout.
This is the kind of book that you get lost in. When you're reading for awhile and you look up and feel disoriented - jolted back to reality. The writing is so good, the story itself sticks to your ribs. It's not pleasant or uplifting or joyful.
But, I'd take powerful and well-written over that any day.
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