Review: Crash, by David Wright
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 12, 2014
Author Thomas Witt, half of the writing team of the popular Dark Family series, is having a rough year.  He’s recently lost his daughter Kayla in a horrible car accident that left Thomas pretty banged up as well, requiring lots of rehab and lots of money, plus lots of pain meds.  He’s also lost all memory of the six months of his life leading up to the crash, and now he makes it a habit to visit crash sites when he comes across them, taking photos of the scene in hopes this will, somehow, jar his memory.Things are going along well--as well as can be expected for the unfortunate Thomas Witt, until one night he notices a strange man in several of his photos.  This “man in black” doesn’t seem to be doing anything on scene, he’s, much like Thomas, just there.  But when Thomas tries to show the photos to his cop friend Officer Ruiz, in hopes she might be able to identify the stranger, the man in the black is gone.Trying to put all of the strangeness behind him, Thomas agrees to attend a meeting in town where people in similar situations, parents who’ve lost a loved one, have been coming to share their stories and help one another to move on.  He’s not thrilled to be there, but at this point he’s just desperate for anything that might help him.  And then Sam shows up.  Sam is the dead son of one of the meeting’s attendees.  And he has a message for Thomas.  He needs Thomas to tell Sam’s mother about his death.Okay, not the most original premise in the world, but still a pretty good read.David Wright’s CRASH is the first non-series story I’ve read from the Self Publishing Podcast group, and as a standalone it works pretty good.  Hopefully they’ll do more like this one.Now let’s look at the details.Beginning:CRASH opens on a very high note.  We’re immediately drawn into Thomas’s world and his journey, made all the more personal by the first person, present tense narrative, so we get to live the story as it happens (although I did spot a few instances where the narrative slipped into past tense, but it’s barely noticeable).  Wright sets the tone from the very start and anyone who is a parent--or a human at all, for that matter--is going to connect with Thomas’s plight and sympathize with what he’s going through.We immediately want to see him succeed, to regain those lost memories--I mean, come on, the guy can’t remember anything of the last six months of his daughter’s life.  I can’t imagine losing even a day I’ve spent with my daughter, let alone half a year.And then when the man in black shows up, we’ve got a pretty good idea what his deal is--and we are, unfortunately, right insofar as his initial purpose in the story--later he turns out not to be quite that, but that’s actually a good thing and it takes the story in a whole new direction we’ll get to in a bit.So far, there’s tension galore, a great set up, and the promise of some very dark happenings.Middle:The middle part of the story, where Thomas’s journey really kicks into gear, is, again, well-written (Wright’s choice of that first person, present tense really envelopes the reader envelopes and immerses them fully in the story).I did find a few of the “shocking revelations” to be less than shocking, like the aforementioned man in the black’s purpose, especially in the scene where Thomas sees him in person at one of the crash sites.  I felt the process of Thomas realizing what was going on was a bit clumsy, but what’reyagonnado?  I understood what Wright was going for, and also understood, as a writer myself, how difficult that scene would have been to write in a convincing manner, but kept hoping he would pull it off anyway.  He managed okay, I just wish it had been a little smoother.  Maybe that’s just me.The rest of Thomas’s journey from that point, however, was anything but expected, and there were some very wonderfully written scenes between Thomas and his wife Meg, especially one after they attend a grief meeting together.Thomas felt like such a real person, struggling to make sense of a dozen things that simply don’t make sense, and I was, once again, rooting for Wright to come to a pretty awesome conclusion and revelation concerning those lost six months.Instead:End:The ending of CRASH, I won’t spoil.  I will, however, say it’s a bit of a twist, which I half expected.  What I also half expected, but hoped and hoped would not be the case, was THIS ending.  One of the hosts of the Story Telling Podcast once referred to this type of ending as “a dick move” and, while I wouldn’t go THAT far--I don’t believe for a second Wright was trying to pull one over on the audience--it’s just such an overused ending that, I don’t care how well it’s handled, how beautifully it’s written--and Wright’s word choice, rhythm and style here are on point--it’s just sort of lame.Oh.  THAT?  Sigh.  Alright.  I guess.  It felt like ordering McDonald’s fries and getting the limp, lukewarm batch near the end.  Oh.  Damn.  I was really looking forward to that, too.In his defense, Wright does rationalize the ending so it makes perfect sense.  Of COURSE that’s what was going on, yeah, I get that, I’m on board.However, being on board and feeling satisfied by the ending are two different things.  Yeah, it makes sense, I can see the logic and how it all fits together.  But that’s doesn’t mean I have to like it.  And it certainly doesn’t mean I wasn’t hoping for something a little more unexpected, something a little more stellar.Overall I give CRASH four stars.  It’s a great premise, the writing is excellent--I did count close to half a dozen typos in CRASH’s “approximately 41,000 words”, but typos happen--and Thomas Witt and his plight was something I could care about.  I wanted to accompany him on his journey and, hopefully, share in his joy when he retrieved those lost memories or, possibly, even got to reconnect with his lost daughter in some way.  I just can’t with that ending.  Sorry, but I can’t.  This one had such huge potential, and Wright’s definitely got the talent, to blow that ending out of the water and leave the reader stunned and shaken.  But after so many words, to come to THAT conclusion?  Oh.  Alright.  I guess.  Sigh.  But, like I said, what’reyougonnado?All of that being said, I do want to applaud Wright for the emotion in this story.  This is a guy who obviously loves his family very much and he put that directly into this story and that’s where CRASH really shines.  So bravo for Wright, usually the curmudgeon of the SPP group, opening up like this.  Damn fine work on that count.