Take a photo of a barcode or cover
bhowardnc 's review for:
The Bright Lands
by John Fram
I keep seeing reviews drawing comparisons between The Bright Lands and Stephen King novels. Having never read a single chapter of anything Stephen King has written leaves me at a loss to add to that discussion. What I have read plenty of are mysteries and thrillers, this qualifies as one of the best I have encountered from a new author.
Joel Whitley left Texas behind a decade ago and with good reason, he was outed in the most publicly humiliating way. He has made a life for himself in New York and avoids his hometown as much as possible. While he may have physically left Texas, mentally he is still affected by the small-town experience as evidenced by his substance abuse which he alludes to throughout. After a night of partying he receives a cryptic text from his only sibling, a brother almost 10 years his junior. Dylan is the superstar football quarterback of Joel’s former high school. In the text he vaguely hints at how unhappy his life is, that he wants to quit the team and hopes for more out of life than Texas can give him. Feeling an overwhelming twinge of guilt for abandoning his brother, Joel books a flight home for the following weekend.
Upon arriving back in Bentley, TX Joel is immediately reminded of the heartaches he survived in his youth. Its Friday night and in Texas that means one thing, football. He heads on over to the high school stadium to catch up with his mom and see his brother play. No sooner than he parks his rental does he encounter his high school love who is now a sheriff’s deputy, Starsha Clark. Rife with anticipation for how this reunion will play out because she was just as humiliated by his outing as he was.
The game was won and much to Joel’s dismay his brother was not planning to stay home and visit over the weekend. As the weekend unfolds it becomes evident to Joel that something just isn’t right with his brother’s impromptu weekend getaway or hell with the entire town of Bentley for that matter. By Sunday it is apparent that Dylan is missing, and Joel is racked with guilt that he has mostly ignored his brother since he left Bentley. Joel forms an unlikely alliance with the one girlfriend he ever had, Clark, and they embark on a mission to find Dylan. Each day uncovers new revelations about the struggles that Dylan was facing and that everyone in Bentley has secrets that they would rather kill than have uncovered. Something sinister has been brewing for decades and lying just beneath the Texas dirt. Joel and Clark are in the fight of their lives to find out just what it is and who knows what. Along the way the pair will reconcile old wounds that will heal in light of new information and Joel will find out that maybe in one sense he and Dylan were more alike than he ever imagined while the rest of Bentley is the furthest thing from the perception of normal they are killing to keep promoting.
There is so much to unpack in this debut novel from John Fram. Substance abuse, homophobia, the teenage experience, small town life, family ties, and local celebrity. Being from a small southern town I can identify with several of these themes and as I progressed towards the end, I kept being drawn back to my own high school days. I was reminded of my recent 20-year class reunion, how much everyone had changed. The former celebrities of our class are no more famous now than they were then, the difference is not in their reality or circumstance but in the perception of their peers. When we all step back and look to those in our past, I think we can all say, ‘if I knew then what I know now’. And for Joel Whitley, knowing then what he has learned now may have changed his entire existence then.
I am eager to see what John Fram has for the literary world next!
Joel Whitley left Texas behind a decade ago and with good reason, he was outed in the most publicly humiliating way. He has made a life for himself in New York and avoids his hometown as much as possible. While he may have physically left Texas, mentally he is still affected by the small-town experience as evidenced by his substance abuse which he alludes to throughout. After a night of partying he receives a cryptic text from his only sibling, a brother almost 10 years his junior. Dylan is the superstar football quarterback of Joel’s former high school. In the text he vaguely hints at how unhappy his life is, that he wants to quit the team and hopes for more out of life than Texas can give him. Feeling an overwhelming twinge of guilt for abandoning his brother, Joel books a flight home for the following weekend.
Upon arriving back in Bentley, TX Joel is immediately reminded of the heartaches he survived in his youth. Its Friday night and in Texas that means one thing, football. He heads on over to the high school stadium to catch up with his mom and see his brother play. No sooner than he parks his rental does he encounter his high school love who is now a sheriff’s deputy, Starsha Clark. Rife with anticipation for how this reunion will play out because she was just as humiliated by his outing as he was.
The game was won and much to Joel’s dismay his brother was not planning to stay home and visit over the weekend. As the weekend unfolds it becomes evident to Joel that something just isn’t right with his brother’s impromptu weekend getaway or hell with the entire town of Bentley for that matter. By Sunday it is apparent that Dylan is missing, and Joel is racked with guilt that he has mostly ignored his brother since he left Bentley. Joel forms an unlikely alliance with the one girlfriend he ever had, Clark, and they embark on a mission to find Dylan. Each day uncovers new revelations about the struggles that Dylan was facing and that everyone in Bentley has secrets that they would rather kill than have uncovered. Something sinister has been brewing for decades and lying just beneath the Texas dirt. Joel and Clark are in the fight of their lives to find out just what it is and who knows what. Along the way the pair will reconcile old wounds that will heal in light of new information and Joel will find out that maybe in one sense he and Dylan were more alike than he ever imagined while the rest of Bentley is the furthest thing from the perception of normal they are killing to keep promoting.
There is so much to unpack in this debut novel from John Fram. Substance abuse, homophobia, the teenage experience, small town life, family ties, and local celebrity. Being from a small southern town I can identify with several of these themes and as I progressed towards the end, I kept being drawn back to my own high school days. I was reminded of my recent 20-year class reunion, how much everyone had changed. The former celebrities of our class are no more famous now than they were then, the difference is not in their reality or circumstance but in the perception of their peers. When we all step back and look to those in our past, I think we can all say, ‘if I knew then what I know now’. And for Joel Whitley, knowing then what he has learned now may have changed his entire existence then.
I am eager to see what John Fram has for the literary world next!