REVIEW: Steven Lewis — The Lights Around the Shore (BOOK)
Steven Lewis’ new book is The Lights Around the Shore. While the story itself, explicitly, is compelling enough as it is — it’s the overwhelming auspices that the narrative fits into that’s particularly evocative to me as a reader. In effect, simply put, the principal overhanging auspice is time. Yes, time. “That time is not a single linear line moving from birth to death, but a tangled universe shimmering with infinite and infinitely parallel moments.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: https://www.stevenlewiswriter.com/
That waiting for anything is the working definition of futility,” writes Lewis. “And that quietly disquieting notion gave birth to itself some months later on a visit with our oldest son in Beaufort, South Carolina. I reached up to hug the taller man, now 54, and I suddenly felt the colicky baby in my young arms, his tiny body pressed to my chest as we paced the living room of that warm and drafty cottage on Lake Kegonsa. Not the memory of that evening in 1969 when I first computed the mathematics of time, but the actual moment itself. And what’s more, right in the midst of that hug, I knew — even if he didn’t — that Cael was back there with me pacing the warm and drafty living room. And he felt my hand cupping his tiny skull.”
The sentiments being deeply personal as expressed in the aforementioned quote, the rest of the story flows with a surprisingly sharp focus. Lewis writes in a manner similar to the great American novels of Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O’Connor, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or even the more grounded works of Stephen King. There’s this evocation without pretentiousness, a sort of immersion without excess world-building. The lines are drawn, but part of what makes the work compelling is they’re recognizable enough that your mind can fill them in. Take, for instance, the opening passage focusing on the character of Charlie Messina.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Lights-Around-Shore-Steven-Lewis/dp/1952439140
“(He), seventy-five and sick and tired of it all, dropped a squishy handful of overripe blueberries into the bowl of Special K and, glancing beyond the jar of honey, reached for the sugar. Spooned in two overflowing tablespoons. Then a splash from the quart container of 2% on the counter. Then another splash. Then a few glug- glugging dribbles to top it off,” Lewis introduces to us. “He slipped the Globe under his armpit, picked up the bowl in one meaty hand and a cup of coffee in the other, walked around the kitchen island, and sat down at the farm table across from his wife Sarah. She had her bronze- colored coffee and was reading something on her iPad, the morning sun over the salt marsh making her squint.
BadBreath, their old and fat German Shepherd mix, was snoring under the table. Sarah didn’t look up, even after Charlie stared at her for a few seconds before picking up his spoon. Of course, Charlie knew how to hold a spoon properly, but he had recently taken to holding it like convicts in grade B movies, shoveling the cereal into his mouth as if it were gruel.”
Colin Jordan
