Skip to main content

These Nameless Things, by Shawn Smucker: A Review

There are a few writers out there who come up with an original idea, flesh it out well in their first book, and then churn out more stories that are nearly identical to the first one. Shawn Smucker is not one of those writers. His newest, These Nameless Things, is the third Smucker book I have read, and each has been great, and none of them are alike. That's a great thing.

Of course, it means I cannot help you out by comparing it to any of his earlier novels. If I were to compare it to any other stories, the closest I could come is that it contains elements of Dante's "Inferno",  "The Lord of the Rings" (because there's a journey with obstacles to overcome--no elves or wizards), "Lost" (the TV series), and "The Fisher King," a 1993 movie starring Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges.

I mention "The Fisher King" because that one is a story about how we can simultaneously have to face the consequences of our actions while receiving forgiveness. It doesn't have to be one or the other, but both of those require something of us. And that something can be hard, but well worth it.

I hesitate to describe the story in too much detail here, because spoilers. The main character, Dan, is living a fairly blissful existence until disruptive events stir up old memories for Dan and his friends. The more these layers of memories begin peeling off, the more he is stirred up to meet those scars head-on, and to let go of his pride and be transparent about his failings, in order to save a family member and others.

The story is compelling, the characters are described well enough to get to know them, and the ending is satisfying. I'm glad I read it, and I recommend it to anyone. Although Smucker's earlier book, "The Day the Angels Fell" was aimed at a teen audience, "These Nameless Things" is more for adults (it's not rated R; it just isn't a kids' story).

As I said at the beginning: every time I have read a Shawn Smucker book, he's come up with a unique idea. I can't imagine how one author can have so much creativity, but I'm already looking forward to reading whatever he's working on next.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Saying goodbye to one set of twins, and hello to another

"It's been ten whole years already? Wow! Hard to believe." Many a father will say something like that while shaking his head in disbelief, when his oldest approaches the 10th birthday. It's a milestone, not just for the kid, but for the parents. It's a head-shaker because I am reminded that on that day, 10 years ago, my life changed forever. In some ways, it has passed very quickly.  In other ways, it seems like it's been every bit of ten years. There are two distinct things, though, about the ten-year anniversary of my dadhood. The first is that I became a father of not one, but two little bundles of joy that Tuesday morning. Abby was born at 8:48, followed by her brother Jacob at 8:50. The second is that their birth marked some rare joy in the midst of the darkest day in our nation's history.  As my wife was in labor, a nurse came in and told us that an airplane had crashed into a skyscraper in New York. I turned on the labor room

The Two Christmases

As I walked through the front door of the Post Office to make my stamp purchase, I was faced with a choice. On my left was a vending machine, and to my right was the customer service desk, where I could make the purchase from actual human beings. Because there was no line at the moment, I chose the human interaction. I strolled up to the middle-aged, slightly balding postal employee, read that his name was "Rex", and I asked for two books of stamps. As it was mid-December, Rex asked me "would you like Christmas stamps, or...". Once I realized he wasn't about to complete the sentence, I looked down and saw that he was holding some very un-Christmas-like stamps bearing images of the Liberty Bell and the word "Forever." Knowing that my wife had planned to mail several Christmas cards, I told him "One of each." To my surprise, the decision-making did not stop there. Rex hit me with a follow-up: he held up two types of stamps: one had a pi

Embarrassing video clip--John Cougar

I recently stumbled across some Youtube gold: a live performance by John Mellencamp when he was Johnny Cougar. He appears to be have been about 23, and he's singing "Ain't even Done With The Night", in front of a fairly unresponsive crowd with Bobby Bare (?!) in the front seat. Cougar/Mellencamp is dressed in a nerdy sweater and generally bears no resemblance to the singer as we knew him just 5 years later. He looks a lot more like Potsie from Happy Days than the guy who sang "Pink Houses". Certainly, there is no way to watch this and make a connection to the guy whose song "This is Our Country" beat us to death by overuse in pickup truck commercials. But the real entertainment value from this clip comes from the guys behind Cougar. In hot-pink tuxedos, there are 5 Pips-like backup dancers/singers who don't sing, but clap their hands real well. They essentially spend the entire song performing cheerleader dance routines not unlike those