Black River by S.M. Hulse (2015)

Sometimes I become so emotionally involved in a book that I lose sight of my usual critical reading habits. The analytical side of my brain takes a vacation. That was the case with Black River by first-time novelist S.M. Hulse. It is the story of one man's struggle to find peace and to give and receive forgiveness, and it won my heart.

Retired prison corrections officer Wes Carver returns to his former home in Black River, Montana, to scatter the ashes of his wife who has recently died after a long fight against cancer. Another reason for his return is to be present at the parole hearing of the convict who years earlier had tortured him for 36 hours during a prison riot, breaking and crushing his fingers so that he could never again play the fiddle--an activity that had given him a transcendent joy. The visit also brings him back into uneasy contact with the estranged step-son from whom he had last parted following an incident filled with violence.

Wes's inherent nature and his job as a prison guard have rendered him a taciturn, stern, and judgmental man with strict ideas about justice and right and wrong. He is a life-long churchgoer who nevertheless has always struggled to wholly believe, feeling himself close to God only through his music, which is now lost to him. Thus he is filled with anger when he hears that his one-time torturer claims to have "found God" and to be a changed man. He rejects the idea that someone who has committed heinous acts could achieve complete faith while he has tried and failed to do the same.

A less sensitive author might have chosen to bring this book to either a happily-ever-after ending or a melodramatic violent one. Hulse does neither. As in real life, these characters strive to find their way but the going is seldom swift or dramatic or easy.

I was particularly attracted to this book by its depictions of the major role that music can have in a life. Although I can neither play an instrument or carry a tune, most of my life I have had a sound track running through my head which in many ways has shaped me; I can only imagine the greater influence music can have on someone who can actually create it.

Readers who are fans of the books of Kent Haruf will especially appreciate this novel. It feature the same kinds of ordinary people trying to live decent lives and is written in the same style of simple yet poetic prose. I highly recommend this one.

(The Amazon web site describes this as a Western. It's only a Western in that its setting is in the West. Don't be misled. No cowboys, no Indians.)

P.S. I frequently cried because it felt so true.