#AmReading
Though in the throes of writing my third novel, Eustace Saves, (my second, Heritage, will be out by year's end), I'm still managing to get some reading done in the evenings. Typically I try not to read too much while in a writing phase, but I find that if I keep to novels that have some similarity to the novel I'm writing - be it setting, character, theme, tone etc. - then I can re-route my creative train of thought through some informative and beneficial landscapes. To that point, I just finished reading Larry Watson's White Crosses.
Set in 1957, White Crosses is the story of Sheriff Jack Nevelsen, born and raised in the windswept and sparse prairie of Bentrock, Montana. When Sheriff Nevelsen discovers the bodies of two of his fellow citizens following a car accident, a sense of moral preservation causes him to tell the lie that will set in motion an unravelling of the precariously-woven fabric of his small town's moral fiber, shattering the very peace the lie was meant to preserve. I found a lot of similarities in White Crosses to another book I've recently read, Larry Brown's Fay. Both feature small town lawmen in shaky marriages, both deal with the effect of morality on law enforcement, and both are propelled by the unknowable actions of young girls entering the first forrays of womanhood. These are all good things. White Crosses is a simple, precise, almost confessional work about the grays within right and wrong that reaps what it sews and burns steadily from page one to its logical yet unexpected conclusion. No spoilers.
I'd never read any Larry Watson before, but you can be damn sure I'll be reading more. His prose had an easy, compelling gait to it, that while not the most fast-paced, left enough interesting breadcrumbs behind to keep me following. For me the writer, it was a good example of a book about law enforcement that wasn't about law enforcement, not traditionally at least, and also of, strong, quiet characters and the dichotomy between man and man's profession, the points at which they interesect and the points at which they start to unravel.
For fans of big sky and the secrets under the rugs of small towns.
