Angels Crest : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: "The time for rescue is over. It's too late."
Review: A few years ago local author Leslie Schwartz wowed the literary community with her debut novel, Jumping the Green - a searing tale of drugs, alcoholism and sexual politics within the San Francisco art world. In Angels Crest, she continues with her themes of showing disparate, desperate people living on the edge. Suffering, sadness and tragedy are combined in a gloomy, maudlin, and quite funereal tale that involves a terrible loss inflicted upon the small mountain community of Angels Crest, in the California Sierras. On a beautiful winter morning, Ethan Denton, in a brief, unthinking spell of inattention, leaves Nate, his three-year old son alone in the car for a few moments. When he returns, the boy is missing and it is this moment that changes the lives of everyone of Angels Crest. Nate's tragic death undulates outwards through the community, and irrevocably changes the town.

The narrative unfolds from the point of view of several different people - a style that is, in itself not that unusual, yet is a suitable set up for a book in which not much seems to happen and the story's juxtaposition of the present, with the slowly emerging past of the characters, seems to be of prime importance. The novel is richly and tautly rendered, and Schwartz has the shear writing skill to present a story that is, at once, complex, intricate, and multi-layered. The plot twists, when they do happen, are understated and nicely controlled. The deeper you go into Angels Crest the more you realize that the characters are kind of refugees, exiles from history, and are ultimately running from conditions of their own making.

Intertwined with the aftermath of the accident is the account of Jane and Roxsan, the two "out" lesbians who have come to Angels Crest to escape from city life. Roxsan seeks solace from the world in her beehives, and is constantly haunted by an abusive father from her past. Jane, wracked with guilt, was driven away from her son twenty years ago by her fear and her lust, "and the need for all the things that she thought would better serve her." Now with her son returning she feels herself caving in, "the world, a big open circle growing smaller and smaller." Cindy, Nate's failed mother, spends her time anesthetized by drink, yet seeks to be pardoned for all her weaknesses and moral lapses, and for all her pettiness and little fears. Glick, Ethan's best friend, who ultimately betrays Ethan, is whipped by his memories of unjust jail time, his vain and stupid longings, and the parade of his immediate failures, first with Cindy and then with Ethan.

Judge Jack Rosenthal "a fair and descent man" whose son, Marty, drug addled, thin and dirty, has been lost to him, provides the moral compass of the story, and is himself torn between the duty to enact secular law, and his own response of "piety, and reverence, to God and mankind." And then there's Angie, alone in her house with her troubled memories of her daughter, Rachel, abandoning her, and leaving her to care for Rosie, her granddaughter, without Rachel's clemency. She's grown wary and scarred by the imbalance of her life being filled with such sorrow.

The characters seem compelled to live out their existence more and more under the malign influence of ghosts whether real or imagined. And their rackety and dysfunctional lives eloquently illustrate the fundamental messiness and illogic of the human condition. Schwartz, in writing this novel, effectively demonstrates just how a baffling, intractable, and multifaceted a thing life can be. But more importantly, she is also showing the world of human suffering, as it really is - a world that is full of woe, misery and wretchedness. Having faith regardless of earthly pain and suffering, and being able to reconcile suffering with a just God, is perhaps at the heart of this somber and solemn story. With a palpable sense of regret and spent anger, Angels Crest is a moving and quite heartrending account of one community's chronicle of tragedy, misfortune, and heartbreak. Mike Leonard June 04

Rating:
Summary: Highly recommend this book
Review: I really enjoyed this book a great deal. I've always been fond of books that had characters that I could relate to and feel a connection with. All the characters in this book seemed very authentic to me. I felt the pain of each one of them, especially Ethan. I could honestly see this happening to anybody, and indeed, have heard about these same types of situations happening in real life. I hope to read more from this very talented author.

Rating:
Summary: Do NOT Miss This One
Review: Superb and astounding--the initial plot involves a father who negligently leaves his three year old son in the truck for a few minutes while he follows some deer in the woods, resulting in the child's death. The underlying story is the portrait of a small northern California town, the tragic losses suffered by various characters, the legend of the angels rescuing five children during the blizzard of 1889, people's faith, people's inability to have faith, forgiveness, separation and reunion and the cycle of life and death. This author has created a masterpiece against a deceptively simple backdrop. I'd like to give a copy of this to everybody I know.

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Summary: The darkest hours of bereavement
Review: This is a story about children, how some of them are lost and some found again. And about belief in God or the lack of it, learning to navigate the world with all its harsh lessons. It is a story about all the ways people get lost, from others and themselves, especially the parents.

Living so close to the realities of nature, the inhabitants of Angel's Crest face their days without the many distractions found in the city. But even in this pristine mountain town, there are many places to hide. It is almost hunting season and the enthusiasts are ready, the first snowfall fresh on the air.

After a bitter and costly custody battle, Ethan has won custody of his three-year old son, Nathan, a boy he thinks of as his "touchstone". Ex-wife Cindy, unable to control her excessive drinking, has finally relinquished her son to the care of his doting father. When Ethan stops his truck, leaving Nathan asleep inside, and follows the trail of two bucks, the young father never imagines that the hand of fate will strike so brutally. That night, the storm is bitterly cold and few hold out hope for the little boy, although no one dares articulate this forbidden thought, as nearly the entire town turns out for the search. A few careless moments change Ethan's world forever and cause the citizens of Angel's Crest to reevaluate their lives.

Schwartz's vision is multi-hued, a rainbow of emotions played out by her characters: Ethan cannot forgive his foolish lapse, the selfish moments that take away everything of meaning in his life; Ethan's best friend, Glick, shuts down his feelings altogether, losing even he memory of hope, while Cindy, broken, drowns her anguish in alcohol; George, the abandoned son of a local woman, clings to his rage, afraid to relinquish it, but is drawn toward forgiveness by his girlfriend, the ethereal, pregnant Melody. With estranged parent-child relationships, alternative lifestyles and intense media attention, the citizens of Angel's Crest are hard put to work through the life problems that have so entangled them.

Yet the real power of Angel's Crest is the power of forgiveness, the deft manner in which the author exposes the hearts of her characters, with their human flaws and disappointments, each carrying a personal burden so readily hidden from the outside world. In the sharing of their grief, in that community, there is healing and comfort. Blinded by pain, it is often impossible to believe the weight of tragedy can be lifted or even made bearable. Schwartz's characters have all entertained dark nights of the soul and found themselves wanting; but the innocence of children, the sweet need of dependence reminds them of the precious opportunities for love, the moments of epiphany, where the sky opens and the heart begins to heal. Luan Gaines/2004.

Rating:
Summary: Redemption
Review: Worlds are built and destroyed in moments, and it is this premise which drives the narrative of Angels Crest. The story opens with the disappearance of little Nate, a tragedy that sets the whole town of Angels Crest on the cusp of despair. In the search for the boy, the personal lives of the town are exposed, and relationships are mended and broken.

The strength of Angels Crest is in Schwartz's ability to show the universal struggle of the human experience without being maudlin. Her characters are strong, yet vulnerable in their endeavors to do the right thing.

In following the lives of the people of Angels Crest, I found myself moved by the intensity of regret, and the grace in redemption.

I strongly recommend this book for a summer must-read.