If Stephen King and John Boyne were to have a literary baby, it might resemble John Fram’s debut novel, The Bright Lands. But to try and compare it to something else does it an injustice—this is part mystery, part allegory, part social commentary, and part horror novel, with emotional heft to boot.
Joel Whitley couldn’t wait to flee his tiny Texas town after he was publicly outed during high school. But texts from his younger brother Dylan, the charismatic quarterback of the high school football team, bring him back home. And when Dylan goes missing shortly after Joel’s return, the town—which worships its team and many of the players—is on edge.
But this is a town full of secrets, and for Joel, many of those secrets circle back to incidents and people from his past. Meanwhile, police detective Starsha Clark is determined to get to the bottom of Dylan’s disappearance, despite the similarities to her own football-playing brother’s disappearance years earlier, and despite some resistance from her colleagues.
As the town circles its wagons to protect its own, Joel, Clark, and others continue their dogged search for the truth. But in doing so, they’ll be forced to confront horrors both imaginary and real, which demonstrate the depths some will go to keep their secrets.
This book...it blew me away in many respects. Shifting perspectives from past to present and multiple narrations add to the haunting feeling that hung over me while reading. There are definitely disturbing things that happen in this book, and the bullying took me back to my own teenage years, in which I experienced far more than I ever divulged.
At times, however, I felt like the book wasn’t 100 percent sure what it wanted to be. There are definitely pieces of the plot I could’ve done without, and things that left me with questions, but on the whole, this was a book that moved and troubled me, and left me thinking. It's honestly unforgettable.
A pretty terrific debut for John Fram! Can't wait to see what his career holds.
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