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Summary: A short review.
Review: Reading Lost Nation was an authentic experience.The characters have depth. The struggles are real. The author is invisible to the reader. I'm hard to please. Modern authors often fail to give me an authentic experience. I usually feel like I'm being tugged through a book like an oxen with a ring in her nose, being told what to feel, what to look at, and what to think about it. Lost Nation was more like life itself - an adventure in emotion and thought, complex, meaningful, and a brutal, but effective, teacher.
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Summary: The Wild, Wild North......
Review: This latest effort by Jeffrey Lent escapes traditional confines in the service of an innovative writing style. Lost Nation challenges the accepted format of his first novel, unrestricted by conventional standards, more edgy and jagged, yet unlike stream-of-consciousness, with an overpowering sense of immediacy. When Blood tethers child-prostitute Sally to the back of his cart and pushes off from Maine toward the vast northern wilderness, his intent is a simple life carved from the unyielding soil of a remote settlement. Blood is singular in purpose, beholden to no man, almost primal in his response to indifferent surroundings. Sally is but an opportunity, a commodity to be bartered as the need arises. Lent draws Blood in coarse, primitive strokes, a fearsome man who lacks the nuances of civilized society. Sally, as well, is spare and quick, by necessity ever watchful. As they adapt to the rigors of the journey north toward Canada's challenging landscape, their tentative relationship is defined less by personality than circumstance and immediate need. Over time, the blunt manner in which Blood discloses himself to Sally binds the story in subtle threads of tension. Can Lent sustain the impetus of this tale throughout? Yes, and he does so consistently. The world Sally and Blood inhabit is laced with imminent danger, the threat of the unknown never farther away than the trees that ring the rough-hewn tavern/trading post where Blood finally settles. Peopled with pioneers, ideologues and misfits, the families settled before Blood and Sally on the land, for all their civilized pretensions, often seem to circle the trader and his young helper like a pack of hungry wolves waiting for the opportunity to strike. Blood remains neutral, in reality more moral than the other settlers, serving his customers with dispassionate regard. Always an outcast, this driven but damaged man becomes a target of their discontent. Aside from his personal demons, Blood remains a sympathetic character throughout, scarred by his past actions and sentenced to live out the agonizing years ahead, a self-inflicted endeavor of repentance. Meanwhile, Sally, her spirit newly awakened, begins to raise her head, less fearful of an intolerant and brutal environment. Blood's uncommon strength allows her to consider a life other than one constricted by survival. The plot moves inexorably towards a violent conclusion, a drama of treachery, betrayal, passion, loyalty, loss and redemption. In Lost Nation, Jeffrey Lent has hit his stride as an author, with powerful, confident prose that rarely disappoints and frequently surprises with moments of unexpected tenderness. His novel is an insightful journey into the heart of darkness, limned with courage and a commitment to the enlightenment of shared grace.
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