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The following synopsis is what is printed on the back of the book. I was wandering around Borders one day and the title of the book caught my eye. After reading what the story was about, it caught my attention enough to buy it.
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A woman is faced with the past she’s tried to put behind her only to find that what transpired in her childhood has never been further away than her own shadow.
The year is 1941. Rooted in the lonely outreaches of the Allegheny Mountains lies the town of Hyde Bend. Its heart: a steel mill; it’s bones: the tight community of Polish immigrants who inhabit it; its blood: their fierce Catholic faith. But buried in the town’s soul is a dangerous secret surrounding the death of a revered priest.
Upon returning to Hyde Bend, a young woman accidentally uncovers the truth behind this crime, which leads to a second murder. The town quickly erupts in fear and finger pointing. The girl is forced to unravel the now-intertwined mysteries and discovers her own family at the center. Now she must confront all she holds sacred if she is to save her family and herself in this story of lost innocence, transgression, faith, and forgiveness.
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The wonders of a synopsis on the back of a book. However, there are some flaws about this write-up. The young woman is not returning to Hyde Bend and accidentally uncovering the crime. She is a 12 year old girl back in 1941 who starts to put together things associated with the death of the priest (not sure it was a crime) and a murder that happens during the story. THEN the town erupts with finger pointing (not necessarily fear), which leads to the second murder. And I am not sure this girl is thinking about saving her family by revealing all this. She is saving them by keeping these discoveries under wraps. The whole “returning to Hyde Bend” book ends the story. She comes back for her mother’s funeral. But no matter how misguided the write-up was, I actually enjoyed the book more then I originally thought I could.
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Brett Ellen Block
It’s not a sweeping epic by any means. It is rather short. But very engaging. The girl (who is never named) and her brother Martin (7 years old) live in poverty with their parents. There obvious riff between their parents, and the descriptions of their lives and surroundings, to me, seemed very well drawn out, and they don’t overtake the story. But the bleakness is a key point to discovering the characters.
I expected a big mystery to figure out, but was handed facts that made the story interesting, then it was all put together in the final chapter. One of the points I totally missed, and was rather shocked when I read it. It made me go back and look over the instance where some of that information is given. Also made me feel rather stupid for missing that. Not that I missed the information, but just couldn’t grasp the vagueness of a character’s delivery of the facts, not knowing who she was talking about.
Most of the story also relied on the girl’s goal of getting back a picture for her mother. Plus with her Catholic faith, there were many lies to cover her tracks, which led to great guilt at first, and the amazement that the lies could come so easy. It seemed more a picture of a family’s life through the eyes of a 12 year old girl in a poverty stricken area of a steel mill town during the war. Not a big mystery surrounding the death of a priest. Again, not in line with the write-up on the back of the book, but entertaining nonetheless.
7/10
