2009.01.04
Review- "Recovering Charles"
"Recovering Charles." By Jason F. Wright. Shadow Mountain Publishing. $21.95
Reviewed by Heather Froeschl
When people go in search of a career change or a piece of the past, they often end up finding something about themselves.
In Jason Wright’s newest novel, "Recovering Charles," protagonist Luke Millward learns poignant life lessons that many readers will relate to.
Luke is a successful photojournalist, his work in high demand. His life seems idyllic. He thinks he has put his past behind him, burying his mother’s depression and suicide, the neglect he felt, his father’s alcoholism. He’d put the last drunken call, the last request for money, behind him two years ago.
Luke had been captivated by the coverage of Hurricane Katrina, like much of the American population. Images of New Orleans burned into his brain; the call of the story in need of telling monopolizing his thoughts.
It was graphic, it was devastating and it was raw. Yet he hadn’t gone in search of images to capture.
The call came from New Orleans. His estranged father had been living in the Ninth Ward and was missing. Charles Millward had started a new life, become a musical mentor and disappeared, like so many others.
After contemplating whether he actually wanted to find his father, Luke drives down from Manhattan and finds reality. The scenes on television weren’t close to the battlefield that the streets had become. Luke would find his personal reality as well. It’s never too late to write a second verse of life.
Wright, a Virginia native, has written a touching story about redemption, facing one’s demons, forgiveness and finding true love in others and in one’s self.
The plot flows between Luke’s past and present with moments of chaos and reflection rushing like the tides Katrina tossed. It reflects life as we live it in the reality of memories, reactions to circumstance and moment to moment living.
The result is a novel that leaves behind the messages that perspective can be found in calamity and that hope must be eternal. I eagerly await more from Jason Wright.
