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In 2017, Reid and Allison Scott’s only son, Connor, receives an acceptance letter from Stanford University, his father’s alma mater. Reid became a tech titan in his youth after inventing a method for compressing text messages, and Connor seems poised to emulate his success. But that same night, Connor is found dead in a public park, a bullet embedded in his forehead.
In 2001, a pregnant single mother named Maria struggles to feed her four children. When Ruben steals steaks from a local butcher, Maria attempts to impress him with the importance of living honorably even under trying conditions. When she vanishes without explanation, Ruben is forced to shoulder the burden of providing for himself and his three younger siblings. When the other children are taken into foster care, Ruben follows a dark path that culminates one evening in a young man’s death.
Strayhorn is a skilled writer with a gift for getting readers invested in some often unlovable characters and building suspense about their ultimate fate. Ruben’s portion of the story reads at times like a modern-day Oliver Twist, while the despairing and Christ-haunted Reid evokes another Dickens character—Ebenezer Scrooge—in his quest for redemption. Admirably for a story centered on faith, the narrative eschews easy answers and resists the temptation to soften the world’s hard edges. Like Johnny Cash, Strayhorn seems keen to expose the unglamorous realities of life in a broken world, which gives the story a refreshing honesty. Both artfully crafted and wise in its understanding of people—their fears, hungers, and sorrows—this is a book to be savored.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review