Salvation

It's hard to find a gem in the vast sea of reading material out there, but that's how I feel about Salvation (Tin House) from Lucia Nevai a writer who has been under the radar but certainly not short on award-winning stories, some of which have appeared in The New Yorker and Glimmer Train. This novel is that rare breed combination of great, crisp writing, a unique strong voice, colorful characters and a good story. Shut the phone off, don't even turn the computer on and lose yourself in this novel set in Iowa during the 1950s and 60s. Nevai's compelling voice engages from the get go...With abject, slavish desire, with offhand, sloppy curiosity, with gratitude, with sedation, I was accidentally engendered and by the end of page one you know you're in good hands. Reader and writer become co-conspirators in a secret fantastic voyage, the way a novel should be. I would follow Salvation's main character Crane Cavanaugh anywhere. And you do, with her wry wit, to a squatter's shack, with a prostitute mother, evangelist father, an aunt wailing sermons and the local pharmacist moving next door. Crane's forehead deformity from her mother's botched abortion attempt is at first shameful then becomes a talisman, a brand of the randomness of life. Left to their own devices by disinterested parents, loving half-siblings Jima and Little Duck cling to Crane in un-educated, feral childhood fraught with adventures, the only constant a nightly 9:49 train trudging through town. We three befriend Mr. Fanelli, a land developer who feeds them sandwiches for lunch as they watch the lake front community blossom. After witnessing a crime in the shack next door, the children now noticed by officials, are scooped up by the state and divided. Crane is sent to a convent where we get a peek at another religion's set of applied behaviors till she gets adopted by Ollie an over enthusiastic bright bulb to Crane's gritty life. Now with a new pink, girlish look, and a somewhat doting mother figure, Crane begins formal schooling, is found to be brilliant and cultivates her intellect in an elaborate scientific ant experiment. The characters are richly whipped with names like Tit, Jump and Flat and descriptions: Her mouth was straight and humorless. She ran over it with lipstick, creating a red equals sign--These people are complex, each with their own melody that winds through the hypocrisies of religion, gender roles and family dynamics in an intricately woven coming-of-age-story. With Crane's own description of herself as a dead ringer for Benjamin Franklin you love her sense of place and constant tugging to reshape and claim it. Be sure and pick up this novel. It won't disappoint.

Alice Sebold is right when she calls it a "knockout." This book grips you from the beginning with its firm and confident sense of place: midcentury rural Iowa. As you soon realize, the setting, like the characters, is like noneother you will ever experience. The strange and beautiful lives of these rural Iowans are captured with gritty realism, intelligent humor and, best of all, a shocking bluntness which puts you square in the story. Like the best novels, you forget you are reading and imagine that the characters are personally telling you this juicy tale. If you like it, check out Seriously: A Novel and Normal.

Salvation is an achingly beautiful book. Nevai's writing is like poetry, and her characters are amazingly real. They tug at your heart long after you've put down the book. The main character, Crane Cavanaugh, is a girl who rises above the difficult hand she was dealt. She is an inspiration to those who face challenges and you root for her all the way through. Every word in this story is perfectly chosen. I loved this book!