When I am asked to review a standard plotline in a heavily mined genre like the American Novel, I am always asking myself, “What makes this book stand out from the rest?” For the first half of this tale, I saw little to get my hopes up. The plotline and settings were well written, but rather predictable and ordinary. The only hints of goodies to come were flashes of excellent characterization, pushing outside of the expected stereotypes. But everything seemed to be happening in the usual pattern of this sort of book.

The obvious plot arc is the development of the main character’s personality as he grows up. The form is a present-day businessman returning to his old home town, and everything he sees creates flashbacks to events from the 1940s.

But there is a secondary and far more interesting bit of learning going on that the reader may not realize until far into the book. At the end, when the author brings the past and the present together, we realize how carefully intertwined the story threads are. Then all the characters come into focus and the themes become clear. The reality we thought we were discovering is turned on its ear, and the story takes on a whole new life.

Unfortunately for all this artistry, the effect is spoiled by a gratuitous deathbed revelation that jerked the story into the melodramatic and exceeded my willingness to suspend my disbelief. Not to say that such a horrendous act might not occur in real life and go unreported and unpunished. But when the event is so out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the story, it’s rather like a gunshot at the end of a love story; we find it hard to remember anything else.

I also need to mention one annoying editing miscue. The author frequently commits a common error in sentence structure called a misplaced modifier. Usually this is just distracting, as you pause to see what the sentence really means, but at times the end result can be hilarious, as in:

“… a revolving door sporting a red jacket that was three sizes too large.”

A wonderful story with an unfortunate flaw. That’s what editors and beta readers are for.

Four stars