5/5 stars
“Yes only love can break your heart. What if your world should fall apart?” – Neil Young
Worlds fall apart, again and again, in this debut from Ed Tarkington. Love drives the characters to extremes, resulting in wild but believable circumstances that leave the reader guessing until the final chapters. The description of this book lets you know a lot is about to happen to a family in a small town, but I had no idea that so much could be packed into just over 300 pages.
In the beginning, the storytelling was really reminiscent of the Wonder Years sitcom. But instead of Kevin recalling the quaint ups and downs of high school, the narrator is Rocky, now middle-aged, telling the story that begins when he’s only in elementary school. Rocky’s brother is named Paul, incidentally the same name as Kevin’s best friend on the Wonder Years. It makes you wonder if Tarkington did threw that in on purpose, alongside all of his other 70s and 80s cultural references to music, theatre, hippies and religious zeal, and more. It’s clear the novel was carefully crafted, with Tarkington ensuring that no reference or sentence was without meaning. The end product is beautiful.
Without spoiling any major plot points, I’ll let you know that the relationships that play out in the book will leave you heartbroken. Rocky’s relationship with his brother, Paul, becomes complicated (to say the least) after Paul abandons Rocky in the woods and then disappears for years. Through the years, their father’s love (also fraught with complications) is all that seems to hold them together. But all three men, and the women who love them, are thrown into a whirlwind of troubles when a double murder forces their little community to find out what they really know about one another. When no one seems to be telling the truth, Rocky doesn’t know who to believe.
The novel draws out deep emotions that we all feel but rarely discuss. I included Tarkington’s book on my 2016 Most Anticipated list, but I wouldn’t have guessed that I would like it as much as I did. The funny thing about a digital galley, or an e-ARC (Advanced Reading Copy), is that sometimes they don’t include a table of contents or accurate page numbers. So, as I was reading, I kept thinking the story was about to wrap up. But then something crazy would happen again and it would keep going and have me still on the edge of my seat. If you’re a fan of brilliantly told family dramas, murder mysteries, or the 70s and 80s small-town experience, you have to check out this new release. I don’t feel like I’m adequately describing the extent to which this novel affected me because I don’t want to give anything away, but just take my word for it. It was a great way to start off my 2016 reading.
Release Date: January 5, 2016 (Algonquin Books)
Disheveled Shelf 