STARLESS MIDNIGHT
By Lynn Garthwaite
ISBN:9781952976025
Released by
Kirk House Publishers, 2020
Fourteen years ago, Jadey Evans and her white mother left the small Wisconsin town of Twin Station, in part, due to feelings of mounting racial pressure. Now, years later and a published author, Jadey is back in town. Her grandmother, the one family member she remembers with any real fondness has willed Jadey the family home. Twin Station has grown substantially, but some of the foundation problems have apparently never been resolved.
Jadey is focused on renovating the house, then either settling into a new residence or selling and moving back to the Twin Cities of Minnesota nearer her mother. Jadey is described as a tough young woman, used to the slings and arrows of modern society but she also has many positive and fond memories of her teen years growing up in a small town. And that’s in spite of a few unsettling and unanswered questions about her grandparents.
The narrative evolves slowly and carefully, from fun-filled homecoming to unsettling clues and events of a darker color all of which coalesce into important questions that lead Jadey to wonder about unexplained events in the past. The author has carefully layered questions, events and partial answers into a revelatory story and eventual exploding action that come together in a well-blended way that entangles a reader. The town, its principal characters and all the events, present and past, raise and maintain growing attention. The author’s ability to present precisely designed and ultimately resolved questions for Jadey and for readers will linger long after the story concludes. Starless Midnight is a fine, intense and satisfying modern novel.
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