Steven Lewis stated that he wanted to write the great American novel. While The Lights Around the Shore may not literally be the great American novel, it is without a doubt in my mind a great American novel. Emphasis on the American. The pictures Mr. Lewis paints, particularly of the character Charlie Messina, are evocative and engaging. This is the kind of story and overall narrative that makes you want to grow old with the characters. Any good story, regardless of whether or not it’s a classic, makes you have that sense of nostalgia and wistfulness when you turn the final page.
ABOUT STEVEN LEWIS: https://www.stevenlewiswriter.com/
There’s this sense of profundity, that there’s a loss there when the story actually is, in effect, over. Take, for instance, the recognizability of the following passage: “The old dog lifted his load, stretched, and followed, wagging his thick tail, into the garage. To the old used- to-be-white Jeep. After Charlie opened the half door, BadBreath somehow managed to will his front paws up to the torn upholstery, then waited for his rear end to be hoisted up to the seat. Then waited again for Charlie to walk around the back of the Jeep, slide in on the other side, and reach across into the glove box for a Milk-Bone. And with drool and crumbs falling on the seat, the two old friends backed out of the barn, the engine wheezing, on to Ledge Road.”
Another passage reflecting this considerable sensibility is: “Instantly slung around by ricocheting emotions, back and forth between worlds, between love and fear, then and now, in the spaces between the everything that seems to be true and all the things I know to be true, I am speechless. In that perilous moment I know precisely what it means to go out there. And in the midst of the shredded linen membrane behind my eyes, I know in my heart I have no choice but to go. So, I hear myself saying this: ‘Holy crap, Dylan, that’s pretty damn wonderful!’ And I’m grinning, like I used to do as a boy gliding around Milford on my bike, like I did years before, at the boy who grew to the man filling the doorway. ‘Even if I don’t know what the hell a BuckyFest is really all about.’”
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Around-Shore-Steven-Lewis/dp/1952439140
Think about that passage. It doesn’t feel like some one-dimensional character, conjured through ink and paper and seeming flinty and removed. It’s like the sentiments of an old friend. Someone who you’ll hate saying goodbye to. Someone you’ll miss. It’s only fitting that the chapter it belongs to is titled Later or your guess is as good as mine. I love that. It flicks its earlobes at the typically pretentious ending, where the characters go riding off into some ideological equivalent of the sunset.
There’s some great stories whose power is undermined by a flawed ending, the literary equivalents of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, from Joseph Campbell’s Heart of Darkness. But here, it’s tied perfectly imperfectly – not with a ribbon, or a bow – but with a sentiment that makes things come full-circle.
Well done, Mr. Lewis. You’ve both broken a trend, and lived up to the best parts of it.
Cyrus Rhodes
