What a way to come back - a 500+ masterpiece that is a joyride by an author that continues to really impress me. This book focuses on the story of three 18 year olds - Emmett, Duchess and Woolly - who met at a juvenile reform school in 1954ish and Emmett's 8 year old brother Billy. We meet them when Emmett returns to Nebraska, having been released early from the farm (literally) when his and Billy's father has died. The book follows the boys over a vast geographical area - they go from Nebraska to New York City to upstate New York utilizing a variety of different methods of travel (including jumping onto a train) and meeting a variety of different people. The novel itself spans the time period of only 10 days, but its compulsive readability led me to tear through it in much less time. I think I finished the book in like 3 days.
What I loved about this book is how it explored various themes related to the human condition. It really looks at themes of kindness and what it means to actually choose kindness and selflessness as opposed to, say, selfishness or self centeredness. It also explicitly looks at writing and coming up with a narrative. Billy is an aspiring writer and really considers how to construct a story - does he start at the middle, the beginning or the end? There are also questions of justice - what is it? What does it look like? What does it mean to settle a debt and make things right?
This book is amazing. Would recommend and I am so glad that I purchased this novel to add to my bookshelf.
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