Customer Reviews

Shadow of Ashland

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In this brief and lovely book, the narrator, Leo, goes on a search for his uncle, missing for fifty years. In the process, he travels back in time to depression era Kentucky, a literary device which is beautifully done and does not seem at all out of place. The author's prose is straightforward and moving in its simplicity, and themes of hardship, loss, remembrance and recovery are woven into the story in a way that stays with you. One of the best books I've read in a long time.

Leo Nolan is at first glance trying to fill a void for his dying mother. In his search for her lost brother he is transported to another time, when troubles ran deep. The characters are easy to grasp, and attention to detail is not necessary. The intermingling of the here and the "then" is inviting. I found this book to be a compelling quick read, worthy of passing onto others.

Shadow is a competently plotted and executed novel, which takes as its departure point a man's search for his long-disappeared uncle who appeared to his mother on her deathbed. Reality, vision, near-death hallucination, it's never clear what she saw, but not long after her death letters from the missing man, written fifty years before just after he abandoned Toronto and headed south to the U.S. in the depths of the Great Depression, begin to arrive. Navigating by the trail of postmarks the nephew reaches Ashland where he encounters his again young uncle one midnight outside the hospital where the uncle worked briefly. Soon he travels back to Great Depression Ashland and is deep into a farfetched miners' plot to rob a bank. There is plenty of trenchant commentary on the rich, much third person detail of depression suffering (recounting the deaths of children is a favorite theme), a love triangle, a new romance for the jaded but brittle narrator, praise for Fr. Coughlin, the Nazi-sympathizer priest who captivated radio audiences in the Thirties, and some fairly stilted dialogue meant as romantic banter. None of this engaged me much, however, and I finished the short novel with nothing more than a sense of another book read and not likely to be long-remembered.

I didn't think I'd like this book but it surprised me. The narrator is likeable and the story is easy to follow. This is not a typical romance (which is what I thought when I looked at the cover). Worth reading at least once!