Reviewed by: BigAl
Genre: Coming of Age
Approximate word count: 75-80,000 words
Availability
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Author:
A resident
of Dallas, this is actor and writer Kevin Crank’s first novel. For more, visit
his website.
Description:
“Wallace
Johnson longs to leave country life behind him. Vowing to find a way to pay for
and graduate from college, he doesn’t realize the price he will have to pay to
get it. Not only does he have to fight against his dad’s pre-conceived plans of
following in his footsteps of living on a farm, he also has a crooked sheriff
and a childhood nemesis to deal with, as well as family loss, all before his
eighteenth birthday.
Leaning
heavily on his brother to guide him, Wallace grows up quickly in a world where
moonshine affects the lives of those dearest to him. Through it all, he falls
in love with his high school sweetheart. However, after a time of separation
without any word from her, they finally reunite and Mary reveals secrets of her
past that might hinder their future together.
Wallace now
has a choice to make. Will he leave the country life in which he was raised to
pursue a career as a writer? Or will he forget all his dreams for the woman he
loves?”
Appraisal:
Where the Moon Shines Brightest is a coming-of-age story set in
rural Southwestern Arkansas in the 1950s. In spite of my complaints which I’ll
get to shortly, there is a good story here. The protagonist, Wallace (never
Wally), is a teenager with ambition, hoping to attend college to become a
journalist and author, and willing to work hard to achieve his goals. But like
most teenagers, he’s also figuring out life. Helping him are his older brother
and his parents, although his father has plans for Wallace that conflict with
his personal goals. The two brothers are much different in what they’re looking
for in life, but his brother Lantis is an excellent mentor and always has
Wallace’s back. The story revolves around themes of family, duty, love, and
geographical roots.
However, I
had two issues with the way Wallace’s story was presented. The first was a tendency
to over explain or over describe. Although this can be a valid stylistic choice
to add color or control pacing, too often it felt like the story was bogging
down as I read all the steps required to get out the door or make breakfast.
Other readers might not react the same (Robert Parker’s Spenser novels are
prone to this, and they did okay).
My bigger
issue was the ending. Not what happened, but how the reader is told, and what
that does to the pacing of the story. Things appear to be coming to a climax at
about the 85% point, with a major story thread coming to a head. I turned the
page, expecting that the next chapter would get more intense as that came to a
final resolution. Instead what happened was a six year jump in the timeline and
the fast pace comes to a crashing halt in a section that reads more like an
epilogue. Through flashbacks we find out how the first thread resolved, another
complication is thrown into the mix, and the pace builds again from there. Eventually
the main story conflict comes to a resolution. But by that point, as a reader,
I was so frustrated that it was more of an anti-climax.
Format/Typo Issues:
No
significant issues.
Rating: *** Three Stars
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