For the past couple of years, I’ve devoted most of my reading energy to my college literature readings or to the classics. (I once had to read twelve novels and eight Shakespeare plays in a single 16-week semester, so even the classics have taken a backseat.) And for the most part, I’ve enjoyed it. Sure, Kalfka’s The Metamorphosis was more disturbing than I knew a piece of literature could be, and I went into reading Wuthering Heights thinking that Heathcliff was going to be the dark and brooding male love interest instead of a controlling psychopath, but still. I’ve read a lot of dead authors, and for the most part, I have no regrets. I’ve even gone so far as to say that all my favorite authors are dead.
However, when I decided to put more effort into reading this year, I knew I should branch out a bit. Try some living authors. My first attempt went awry (I’ll tell you my thoughts on Louise Erdrich in a later blog post) so I hopped on Thriftbooks and fell back on an old favorite: Creston Mapes.
I was first introduced to Mapes back when I was probably 14 and had the Kindle app on my iPod Touch. I wanted some good Christian fiction, and I picked Mapes’s The Crittendon Files–largely because one of the main characters shares their first name with my mother. But I loved it. Anyway, I picked his 2007 novel Nobody and read the whole thing in…three days? Four? Less than a week, that’s for sure. It’s rare that I tell myself “one more chapter” as a statement of when I’m going to stop reading instead of an encouragement to keep going.
The story is told from the first person perspective of several characters, but the main one is Hudson Ambrose, a reporter living in Las Vegas. He sees a homeless man dead on a bus stop bench. Wanting a story to write about, Hud checks the corpse for identification only to find out that the “homeless” man is a millionaire named Chester Holte. Things devolve quickly from there. There’s an obligatory romance subplot with a jealous ex involved, dirty cops, tragic backstories and dead parents. Bits of violence and gore. Never a dull moment.
The pacing is perfect and the characters are well-rounded. The writing style fades into the backround, but in a good way, so that the reader can focus on the story and the action rather than on the words and sentences. Even though the first person narration changes speakers several times throughout the story, I never once got confused as to which character was narrating a chapter. I never got bored, either.
As an author, I can be a bit nit-picky about books, and so most of the negative criticisms I have about the book are fairly minor. The side plot with a minor character getting kidnapped felt too hastily resolved. There’s a megachurch pastor named Ellery who personally comes to visit one of his congregants when the aforementioned jealous ex physically assaults her. As a person who belongs to a very large church, this feels unrealistic. Large churches have associate pastors whose main job it is to care for the flock, and the book made it seem like Ellery is the only pastor at this church. One person can’t do everything.
Again, these are fairly minor issues. I only had two major concerns. Hudson is not a Christian, and several characters reach out to him in an effort to convert him. These conversations come across as unnatural and preachy–which is kind of the point, but still, I’ve never met a person who would say something like “Be either hot or cold!” or “he sensed pride coming from the pulpit” in real life. Second, the romance between Hud and leading lady Holly feels a bit rushed, especially since Holly is just getting out of an abusive relationship. Hudson quite literally starts finding Holly attractive the moment she decides to ditch her ex. Then again, since I need to work on my own evangelism skills and I’m quite inexperienced with relationships, I could be wrong about those things.
As a writer of Christian fiction, I can say that it is VERY hard to strike the right balance of entertaining your readers vs. getting your spiritual point across. Mapes does a great job of that overall. In fact, the story and the spiritual elements are both so strong and well-developed that I can’t tell which one came first. I give this book a 4.5 out of 5 and highly recommend it.