Book Review:

Approaching Storm
a novel by
Francis Perry

[Reviewed by Philip Goutell]

When a friend writes and self-publishes a book I try to be supportive, even if it means I'll have to buy a copy.

But the cost of the book is trivial alongside the anxiety of waiting for the words, "how did you like it?" and feeling that I've just been put in the position of the honest politician when confronted with the ugliest baby ever. ("That's a baby!" was his tactful compliment.)

So when Approaching Storm by Francis Perry arrived in the mail my intention was to be respectful and tactful and hopeful that I could find some point of honest praise, and that the book would not be too painful to read.

As fate would have it, Approaching Storm arrived in the same mail that brought a book I was eager to read, a non-fiction by an author whose previous work has appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and who teaches creative writing at a college just a few miles east of Perry's fictional "Parker Mills," the setting for Approaching Storm. My interest in this second book was heightened by a bibliographical reference to an article I had co-authored.

So I nibbled at this non-fiction which I expected to find compelling. Then, early Saturday morning, I tasted the first few pages of Approaching Storm — and read on. And on.

Ignoring my wife for most of the weekend, I finished Approaching Storm late Sunday afternoon. I had to find out how the dark mystery would be resolved.

The other book? I'll get back to it when time permits.

The theme of Approaching Storm is set in the first few pages so we know that a school teacher has been murdered, her body has been found in the trunk of her car which was parked in the school parking lot, and that, while years have passed, the motive for her murder and the identify of her killer remain a mystery.

That's the history that confronts a new, part-time guidance counselor whose mission is to help students deal with any lingering effects of this traumatic event. That's all. But, this being a mystery novel, you can guess that not everything goes according to plan.

I'll stop there as to the plot but there are several points I'd like to mention.

The writer is a committed Christian (I met him at a church we both attended) and does not set aside his faith or moral values to gain a larger audience. Thus characters in this book are steeped in traditional values. Romance is just that. The scenes between man and woman so common (and expected) in literature today simply do not happen — not in the text, not by implication. The result is a pleasing male-female tension and growing closeness rather than what we have generally come to settle for.

While the young adult characters may have slipped a bit from the religious practices of their parents, far from being disrespectful of these practices there is a sense that in days to come these practices will be embraced.

Moreover, the "good" characters in the book (which add up to most of the characters) are decent people whose mistakes and misunderstandings are never the result of corruption or bad faith. It's refreshing to read an author who clearly believes that most people are decent.

So you would think this book would be boring.

In fact, the heart of the story — the "storm" — involves a social and legal taboo, highly controversial, even inflammatory. These are deeds we prefer not to acknowledge, hoping therefore that they cannot exist.

Yet the author handles it deftly. In the midst of the "storm" people keep their heads and continue to be decent people, trying to do what's right while taking huge personal risks. These risks include physical danger (and death) as well as significant personal legal jeopardy with career ending consequences.

Perry's Approaching Storm does not have the broad scope of Alias Grace (Margaret Atwood) or The Book of Negros (Lawrence Hill), works by fellow Canadian authors. Nor do we find variety of exotic characters that populate Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, etc.) But what it does have are honest characters created out of the author's personal experience. So we trust them as being real.

Approaching Storm is currently available only by mail from the author unless you are fortunate enough to live in Shelburn County, Nova Scotia. The cost of the book and one-rate shipping (to either the U.S., Canada, or wherever) is well worth the price for a good story. You'll want to know what happens in the end.

Francis Perry, Approaching Storm
(Order Page)

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