(originally posted on April 15, 2009)
I could cap this quickly with the throwaway remark that "John Hart does it again, and even better" but that doesn't seem terribly fair. Still, I remain amazed at how his storytelling ability draws me into his North Carolina gothic tales, where those who shock the most are the ones who have no secrets to keep. In other words, no one is truly innocent - not even 13 year old Johnny Merrimon, ever on the lookout for his long-missing sister Alyssa, smack in the middle of a vortex of sadness and tragedy that permeates his entire town. And yet we understand that somehow, even when things are at their worst, there's still a strong strain of purity and hope that comes through, the rightness of order that peeks out from ever-encompassing chaos.
